Gloria
by SurfingSpider
Summary: WH40K. Follow Sister Superior Gloria and her squad of Battle Sisters through their trials and tribulations for the Emperor of Mankind against Orks, genestealers and the corruption of Chaos. FIN.
1. Litany I

GLORIA

LITANY I

The missile exploded sending another gout of dirt into the air before it rained down on the feminine power armour suits below.

"They're still short," Sister Verona said, stepping down from the firing ledge of the trench. "Gunners must be new or blind to be so bad."

Sister Superior Gloria nodded, also shaking pieces of dirt from her uniform white hair, which all the Sisters shared along with similar faces. She leant against the back wall of the trench, others of her squad kneeling in prayer or cleaning their weapons: consecrated bolters and promethium-spewing flamethrowers. They were unconcerned about the Orks terrible artillery.

"The Green Skins aren't known for their skill, or intelligence. If they had either," Gloria's face hardened, "they would have attacked us by now."

Her command was small, just a platoon of Sisters covering a broad front. At least plenty of time had been available to occupy the trenches an Imperial Guard Regiment had dug before they were routed by the Orks. Her platoon had been part of the counter-attack and now it was the Orks turn to try and take the position back. They obviously didn't know how small a force they faced, otherwise they would have attacked. The time they gave her allowed her troops to get into position, make some improvements, and mark their fire zones; so when the Orks did come it would be into a hail of bolter fire.

"Maybe they wont, Sister Superior." Verona said. "They could just be content with firing rockets at us. We inflicted many casualties amongst the Emperorless."

"They will come, don't you worry. Continue to watch the sector, I'm going to check on the other squads," Gloria replied. Verona nodded and Gloria walked down the trench, moving casually in her dark red power armour, tan velvet skirt swaying with each step. Upon the skirt were quote of Imperial Code that never failed to steady her resolve, and an image of a saint, and the mark of the Inquisition. The ikon of the Inquisition, a silver bar and gold skull, hung on an Adamite chain around her waist. By her hips, slung, were her bolt pistol and a mighty Eviscerator. She had seen the massive chainsword in action in the hands of the Repentia Sisters and attained permission to wield one herself. In her platoon it was the only weapon that had a chance of penetrating the armour of a tank or dreadnought. A great responsibility for a Sister Superior.

As she passed down the trench Gloria greeted each of her fellow Sisters. She had been their Superior for two campaigns now and knew each warrior well. Some she knew better than others, like Sister Rachael.

"Ho, Rachael," Gloria greeted, "Any activity?"

Sister Rachael, a legend not only in the platoon but the entire Convent, was standing on the trench in full view of the enemy. She turned around carelessly, holding the bulky red body of a heavy flamer in her hands. The Sister shrugged.

"What's that?" Gloria asked, pointed, with a smile on her face, to a glowing stick protruding from one side of Rachael's mouth.

"Narcweed of some kind," Rachael shrugged again, her personality was blasé, "Got it from a dead Boss."

"Looting from vermin isn't allowed," Gloria frowned, hardly meaning it however. Rachael was a Sister apart from the others, fully exemplified when another Ork rocket careened into the ground and exploded. Gloria and the other Sisters ducked reflexively, faithfull in the protection offered by their power armour but still cautious, whilst Rachael did not flinch or batter an eyelid despite being closest to the explosion and its target. Not a single piece of dirt marred her perfect armour.

"Dammit," Rachael swore. Her cigar had gone out.

"You should get down," Gloria urged hearing the whistle of another incoming missile.

Rachael hoped lightly into the trench, the missile exploding exactly where she had been standing. As debris flew by the Sister grabbed a smoking shard of metal and relit her cigar.

"Aim's improving," Rachael said.

"Yes," Gloria agreed, "then they will attack soon."

"Good. I hate waiting. Can't burn the snots to cinders if they stay away," turning Rachael yelled out: "Green belly cowards!"

Gloria thought for a moment. Rachael's weapon had the shortest range of the platoon, and was the only functional heavy flamer left. Orks were tough and hard to take down. She needed Rachael in the best possible position for her weapon to inflict the greatest damage on the enemy. There was just a point.

"Rachael, take your squad," Rachael had been breveted to squad leader after the first had died in the counter attack, "and replace Sister Tie's squad at the Hump."

"I was thinking just the same, Gloria." Rachael said, one of the few Sisters who had the familiarity to withhold Gloria's rank when addressing her. Gloria was the only person in the Convent who did not call Rachael Sister Rachael. "Position's got the best field of fire and can rake up and down the trench. I'll hold it, don't you worry."

"I never do," Gloria replied grinning and clapped Rachael's shoulder pad. "Now get moving."

Gloria continued her inspection, having to take cover more often as the number of Ork rockets steadily increased and their aim got better. No casualties were caused to her Sisters but they were kept away from the firing ledge and that meant the Orks could get close before they had to stop firing the rockets.

Short-range firepower was what the Sisters excelled at however.

Gloria returned to Sister Verona.

"Any time now," Verona answered the unspoken question. It was at that moment that the whine of rockets ceased.

Gloria drew out her bolt pistol.

"Listen up, Sisters!" she shouted up and down the trench, "They're about to come and try to retake this position. We shall not let them! Those green maggots are an abomination to the Emperor and it is our Duty to eradicate them from the Empire! Take your positions!"

The waiting Sisters snatched up their bolters and stepped up onto the firing ledge, leaning their bodies into the hard ground and aiming their deadly weapons.

"For the Emperor!" Gloria shouted.

"The Emperor!" echoed her platoon.

"Here they come!" one of her Sisters shouted from down the trench.

Up from where they had crawled a long line of green rose, large and muscled Orks, one of the foulest enemies of the Empire that had to be constantly fought against. The inhuman creatures bellowed in rage through tusked maws and started to run the final twenty metres to the line of waiting Sisters.

"Fire!"

Forty bolters roared to flaming life, sending a hail storm of death that struck down the front rank of Orks before they had covered a metre, hard bodies knocked back with limbs flailing uncontrolled.

But there were more behind. Many more, and they quickly closed the distance to the thin red line.

An Ork, cleaver in one hand, miscarriage of a bolt pistol in another, appeared at the lip of the trench somehow having weaved his way through the maelstrom of fire the Sisters were producing. Gloria, watching the progress of the battle without partaking lifted her pistol and fired sending the Ork tumbling back with dark green stains across its chest.

"Keep firing!" she repeated, walking the line, tapping Sisters on the back to let them know they weren't alone. In the heat of battle tunnel vision was common, the warrior only thinking about what lay directly in front of her.

Black shapes flew through the air towards them. Grenades. The Sisters ducked behind the ledge, those that didn't suffering the consequences as the scrap iron cans exploded releasing their makeshift but deadly cargo of rusted nails.

"Back to the fine," Gloria leapt up to the firing ledge. Now was the critical moment. Through the dissipating smoke and dirt the Orks appeared as numerous as ever. Gloria fired as rapidly as she could sending many foes to hell, the firing around her increasing as more Sisters returned to the line.

But it wasn't enough and the Orks were too many. Bellowing they leapt into the trench, thick arms and meaty fists knocking the lithe Sisters aside before shooting at them point blank. The Sister's power armour saved many of their lives but not all and steadily the Sisters were driven back and isolated from each other.

Gloria discarded her pistol and hewed with her Eviscerator. Bloody green limbs tumbled away and bodies piled at her feet. Yet she was forced back. A grenade from a compatriot allowed her to disengage and she collected a group of survivors and rushed down the trench to where Rachael was.

The Hump was still holding. Rachael, one foot planted on the ground outside the trench, the other on the ledge was spraying the approaches to the Hump with her flamer. Dozens of charred Orks smoked on the fire-blackened ground. Half a dozen bolter armed Sisters continued to fight.

Rachael noticed Gloria's coming and called out. "We got 'em here, but if they bring up a tank or 'can…" she needn't complete the sentence. If the Orks had armour of any kind the Gloria knew her position would be wiped out. Already it was overrun.

Where were her reinforcements?

Sisters from the other side of the Hump had also retreated to its safety giving Gloria one large squad to defend the location with. She could hear firing from other parts of the trench so more of her platoon were still alive and fighting. For how long she didn't know. The Orks would concentrate on wiping out the small pockets before turning their attention to her weakened command. They were afraid of Rachael.

She couldn't stay in position however. Eventually her force would be destroyed. Her Sisters needed rescuing.

"Rachael!" Gloria called.

"Yo!"

"Get down here. I want you in the lead for a sortie up the trench. We've got to pick up stragglers."

"Understood," Rachael hopped into the trench, her place taken by a pair of bolter armed Sisters. She took point; Gloria behind with a bolter picked up from a Sister who needed hers no longer and two more Sisters following with grenades.

Rachael set the pace, without much caution. Her style was to attack fast, having been in a Dominion squad until transferred to Gloria's platoon, and not give the enemy time to react. For many an Ork she was the last thing they saw, if they saw her at all, as she emerged from smoke or around a zigzag and flamed them into blackened piles of bone.

One of the accompanying Sisters fell, shot in the back. The other turned and exploded the Orks gut with bolter rounds and then it was hand to hand as four large Orks jumped into the trench from outside.

"Bring it!" Rachael shouted; the Ork's huge face was right in hers, the monster's fetid breath crashing over her face like a cesspool. She let go of the flamer and grabbed both the Ork's tusks and slammed her forehead into the monster's. It groaned and staggered back, she adding in a kick and pulling free a shotgun like weapon and firing it, opened a cavity in the Ork's stomach.

Gloria was knocked to the ground, her Eviscerator too unwieldy to use swiftly in the trench. Her assailant, shrunken Imperial Guardsmen heads dangling from a necklace of finger bones, leered down at her and pulled out a knife as long as her forearm. She used both her hands to grab his wrist, he laughed at her and used his other hand to punch her in the face, stunning her.

Gloria could see the knife about to fall and end her life when it stopped jerkily. She looked at the Ork, thick blood began to pour out of its maw and it fell over, dead. Behind stood a bruised and battered Verona who leant down, a hand out in offering.

"Let's go."

Gloria took the hand with vigour and was pulled up. She picked up her gun, Rachael and the other Sister were alive and the Orks dead. Verona had brought two more Sisters with her.

"Any more?" Gloria asked.

Verona shook her head. The question was unnecessary, if there had been more they would have been with Verona.

"Ok, back to the Hump."

Gloria took lead, Rachael in the rear, giving off bursts off flame to keep the Orks distant.

Then her worst fears were realised. They heard it first, a heavy grinding noise that could only belong to a big, inefficient, Ork engine. The Sisters looked over the trench ledge and saw a pair of garish tanks slowly making their way to the trench. There was nothing to stop them. Gloria had left the Eviscerator behind, forgotten it. She cursed herself.

"Time to withdraw," Verona offered.

Gloria glared at the Sister angrily, more of the anger directed at herself for failing to defend the position, knowing that Verona was right. They couldn't destroy the tanks.

Deflated, Gloria sagged against the trench. So this would be her last command, she would not retire from the battlefield until all of her remaining Sisters had managed to do so safely. That would mean her likely death, rushing one of the tanks with a grenade in an impossible attempt to damage it. The kind of sacrifice Martyrs were glorified for.

In the sky she could just make out the orb of the planet's sun through the shifting haze. She didn't even know the name of the planet, it was just some designation to her, VK-49z. An infestation of Orks; she had been unable to stop.

The Emperor would be displeased.

"By pairs then –" Gloria started.

Then the field grew brilliant white, as if the presence of the Emperor himself had arrived.

Then followed the sound and the shockwave.

The Sisters fell to the ground, stunned and deafened. Their bones ached, ears rang, and stars danced before their eyes. It took them long minutes to recover, no bullets or knives attacking them.

Rachael was the first to regain her senses. She went to the ledge and peered over before hurrying back to Gloria, tugging her to the ledge.

"Look!" she shouted, still half-deaf, and pointed.

Gloria, followed by the others, looked over the ledge in wonder. Both the Ork tanks were smouldering ruins, hardly tanks at all any longer but pieces of shredded metal amongst the horde of blasted Ork bodies.

"What in the Emperor's name did that?" Verona asked.

"Orbital Strike, Sister," came the reply from behind them.

The Sisters turned and saw a lanky man smiling down at them condescendingly. He wore an ankle length black coat and cap that had no adornment except for the symbol of the Inquisition. Behind him was a squad of black armoured Stormtroopers, his bodyguard. Around them more Stormtroopers were advancing.

"I'm afraid your expected reinforcements failed the Emperor and had to be cleansed," the Inquisitor said blithely, the hundreds of lives meaning nothing to him, "I saved you because…" he looked at Gloria, "My psyker believes that you are important. Important enough that my superior has ordered what remains of your tattered force to accompany me to Terra Fuego."

Gloria, nor the others, had heard of the planet. They were still overcoming the shock that their lives had been spared by a powerful figure in the Imperium. Inquisitors were justice as it were.

"There is an insurrection brewing Sister, and it is your duty and obligation to defend the Empire from heresy! You have half an hour to be at my dropship before it departs."

The Inquistor turned on his heels and strode away leaving the confused Sisters to stare at each other and wonder what was in store for them on Terra Fuego. They also wondered by Gloria had been picked out. Why was she important?

Gloria too wondered and could find no answer.


	2. Litany II

LITANY II

Terra Fuego sat in the middle of the viewport, a violent swirl of red and orange gas cloud. Below the cloud level was the rocky barren surface pockmarked by industrial mining cities and the planet's one great spiral metropolis, Terra Feugo City.

"Originally named," Sister Verona said, bored, turning away from the viewport.

"Tens of millions of people live there," Gloria continued reading from the planetary report, "if there is heresy spreading then it is our duty to uncover and eradicate it."

"Ah, Gloria. You have been in the Inquisitor's office for too long," Rachael sighed. "I just want to go down there and cleanse the heretic's souls with holy fire." The former Dominion squad Sister mimed holding her heavy flamer. "I'll give them feugo."

The other Sisters of Gloria's much reduced platoon laughed. Gloria too had to smile at Rachael's simple take of the mission. Don't worry about why, just do, and do well was the Sister's motto.

"I don't know why Inquisitor Feodervich didn't put you in command," Gloria said.

"I'm sure he wants some prisoners to interrogate," Rachael replied, patting Gloria's shoulder. "I wouldn't leave any of them alive."

"True enough, hot head," quipped Verona, ignoring Rachael's return stare.

"Captain on deck!" came a male shout.

The Sister's, loitering in the warship's common room, fell into two lines six, the active remains of an entire platoon of Sisters Of Battle. They were dressed simply and austerely in corse white gowns and brown habits tied about their waists by a plain black cord from which an Imperial Ikon hung.

The Captain of the Stormtroopers, young Comte Yegenov, entered the room with a straight back. His black jackboots had been polished brightly enough to reflect the violent glow of Terra Feugo. His entourage of subalterns followed a step behind, all looking smart in their crisp black uniforms.

"Is this how the Sister's prepare for battle, gawking out a window?" he Comte said sarcastically.

Luckily Gloria was standing next to Rachael and able to silence her response before it was said by stepping on her toes.

"Well?" the Comte pressed.

"No, Sir." Gloria answered. "We prepare for battle in the Chapel, meditating and praying for guidance and purity from the Emperor."

Whilst Gloria was the commander of her troops and technically was superior of higher rank and status to an Imperial Guard officer, Yegenov's royal title and familiarity with the Inquisitor gave him the higher rank. The two week journey from VK-49z had not established cooperative relations between the different arms of the Imperium, something the Inquisitor had not tried to rectify.

Women not of the Convent would have found the Comte handsome and dashing in his uniform, brave as he stood surrounded by battle unwavering. Gloria knew he was competent and more experienced than herself, but also arrogant and condescending to her squad. The Comte's Stormtroopers behaved the same way when he was not around and it had been hard work controlling Rachael and the others from starting a fight. Hopefully now that they had arrived at the planet everyone would turn their frustrations on the heretics.

Yegenov clearly didn't like the answer Gloria gave, thin moustache twitching. He walked to the viewport, hands clasped behind his stiff back, and looked out for minutes before turning around.

"The drop will be made at 00:45 hours, 15 minutes before the blowing of the main heat sinks. The dropships will take 20 minutes to penetrate the atmosphere and enter the city via the sinks. At 01:30 hours the power facility will be under the control of my company. Your squad, Sister Superior, will secure the subterranean control house and there wait for more orders. Lieutenant," the Comte held out his hand and a Lieutenant handed him a thin vidfolder, "This is the timetable and technical specifications. I suggest you study it immediately and pray later. Inspection will be held by the Inquisitor at 20:00 hours."

As quickly as he came the Captain left, turning on his heel and stepping smartly from the room, entourage behind.

Gloria weighed the vidfolder in her hand. So light, yet the contents inside were a heavy burden. A combat mission, and the responsibilities of the lives of her Sisters.

"Weren't you supposed to be at the planning session?" Sister Verona asked.

Gloria was meant to have been. Another example of how the Comte treated her. Why hadn't the Inquisitor asked for her? Or had the Comte made a lie for that as well?

"It doesn't matter. Here is our mission and I will study it diligently. I suggest all of you return to your quarters and prepare by checking your armour and weapons. We still are the better warriors on board this ship; only Chosen are allowed consecrated power armour in the image of the Emperor's own and to fire the holy bolter. When we are ready I will explain the mission and then we shall pray in the Chapel."

The Chapel was small and at the back of the Inquisitor's warship were the engines made the faux stone walls vibrate with the spirit of the Machine God. The Imperial Ikon, golden skull at the apex of the silver cross stood on a purple velvet covered bench. Before it knelt the Sisters in their red power armour, weapons laid in front of them: heresy ending bolters and promethium cleansing flamers. A long sarissa blade had been added to Gloria's bolter, the replacement of her lost Eviscerator and a power sword hung by her hip.

Gloria led the chant of the Convent's Prayer to the Emperor. The dozen Sisters held their heads respectively bowed, gloved hands together and eyes closed. When finished Gloria rose and turned to face her squad.

"Sisters!" she began, "Friends. Heretics have taken control of the cities power station and are laying siege to the Imperial Governor's mansion. They are lightly armed with planetary defence issue weapons but may have access to more powerful armaments from the Garrison. Our mission is to cleanse the lower power station of the heretics ensuring that Captain Yegenov and his Engineers can restore power to the Governor's mansion and its defences. The second phase of orders will be delivered once this has been accomplished and in response to the enemies actions.

"Schematics of the power station have been uploaded into your armour's systems," she concluded.

As was customary for the Sisters of the Convent they all turned to face the Imperial Alter and fell to their knees and prayed. It did not matter what kind of battle or enemy they would be facing; they always prayed that their will and resolve would be strong enough to overcome the challenge. Where many Imperial commanders would place their trust in plans and contingencies, the Sisters had their Faith and it rarely failed them.

The dozen fully armed and armoured Sisters of Battle were cramped in the assault dropship that had been designed for a normal ten man Stormtrooper squad. Comte Vegenov bade them farewell personally, closing the hatch with a grin that did not make any of the Sister's feel comfortable.

"Can we trust him?" Rachael asked, heavy flamer held tightly against her power armour. Verona and another Sister were almost sitting on top of her, also armed with Stormbolters, grenades, and plastic explosive charges for blowing holes in bulkheads.

"He is a Servant of the Emperor, just like us." Gloria replied.

"That doesn't stop accidents," Rachael said quietly but everyone heard.

The dropship had one visionport that showed the dark drop chamber of the warship. A distorted voice began the countdown. 10, 9, 8 … 3, 2 1.

And the dropship fell free from the mother. It was sudden and fast. Stomachs lurched as within seconds the dropship was in atmosphere, fired from the rapidly vanishing warship like a cannon shot. From the viewport Gloria could see other flaming trails, also dropships, as they began their hyperdescent to the power facility on the surface, unseen, below.

"What a rush!" Rachael cried over the near-deafening rattle of the dropship's hull and their armoured bodies clanging against each other.

A clock raced the time in fall.

The dropship began to turn until it had rotated 180 degrees and the nose faced down. The viewport now showed the power facility, a huge complex of domes, kilometre high exhaust towers. More, much more lay beneath. One of the exhaust towers grew larger, its black hole waiting to swallow the Sisters up.

Retro-thrusters fired throwing the Sister's into their harnesses. Many swore.

"Don't press any trigger!" Gloria tried to say through chattering teeth. Ordonnance going off inside the dropship would be catastrophic.

At least we're not being fired upon, the Sister Superior thought to herself. She looked at the timer; it was barely thirty seconds since launch. The heretics would not have had time to target them. Vegenov was a competent commander she had to concede.

Then the dropship was in the exhaust tunnel, safe. Unless it hit the structure and it disintegrate into hundreds or thousands of pieces.

Faith in the Emperor, Sister!

"IMPACT WARNING, IMPACT WARNING!"

Faith!

"This is it!" someone yelled.

Indeed it was. The dropship's retro-thrusters flared their last brilliant burst, sending the temperature inside the dropship to barely tolerable levels, before falling silent and less than a second after that the cone-shaped object crashed into the bottom of the shaft.

The world turned and twisted and was full of terrible noise. Her power armour kept Gloria from losing consciousness. There would have been no way for ordinary humans to withstand the collision and landing – one and the same – and that was why the Sisters had been given the task. They weren't fully human; not as engineered as a Space Marine, but still dedicated to their role. Those in power armour always were.

Finally the dropship stopped moving. The viewport only showed static, the camera broken. Fumes started to fill the interior.

"Everyone out!" Gloria yelled.

Groggily the Sister's undid their harnesses and two released the hatch. It didn't open all the way. Gloria felt the seconds grow, each one a moment given to the enemy to react to their arrival.

"Blow it- "

Verona took hold of the bulkheads above the door and used the leverage to kick the hatch until it clanged down onto a grill. Sister's armed with rapid fire bolters quickly leapt through the opening past her and took up position.

The squad was quickly out of the dropship and the combat pharmaceuticals being released into their bloodstream made the alert. Gloria checked a panel in her forearm that showed the schematics of the facility and her location. The tracking signal was working fine.

"We go left one hundred meters and there will be an elevator. We take that down ten levels, which will bring us to the main generator cavern. The control room is there."

"Why don't we take the stairs?" Verona asked?

"Time. The Captain's attack will divert most of the enemy's attention. Workers and some armed supervisors will be our only opposition at the outset." Gloria replied.

Verona nodded; Gloria was in command and her orders would be obeyed.

The dozen set out in tight formation. The weapons of the heretics would be lasguns at best, barely capable of penetrating a suit of power armour. Storm bolters were at the fore and behind. Rachael and her heavy flamer was near the front. Everyone else had bolters. Sister Marie, the technical specialist also had a hack-system ready in case the heretics shut down the automatic doors and elevators. She stayed next to Gloria ready for orders, she in the middle.

The hundred meters was quickly covered. A Sister pressed the DOWN button and it lit up; power was still on. The heretics would be frantically wondering if they should turn the power off and try to strand the attackers so they could organise their own defence in response. The longer they took to decide, the worse their leader was, Gloria believed. She would have cut the power as soon as the dropships had been identified as heading for the power station even if that isolated many of her own troops. A home-field advantage would make up for it.

The elevator shaft, simple four endless columns covered in grate, acted as an exhaust shaft itself. Hot air blew up it, ruffling the Sister's peroxide hair. An elevator was coming down.

The Sister's backed up so they would not be seen next to the exit until it was too late. Gloria drew her sword and it hummed softly. She would be the first in having the only dedicated close combat weapons. The sarissa was for tough opponents.

The elevator came down fast, yet not fast enough for the impatient Sisters. They gripped their triggers tightly. Gloria hoped that none would shoot prematurely. The fall and drugs had filled them with adrenaline and a sense of impatience.

The elevator was a box of heat-resistant metal. Blackened doors opened revealing three ordinary looking technicians in grey jumpsuits inside. One looked out, the opening of the door was unexpected and his eyes widened in surprise before a hail of bolter fire turned him and his two companions into bloody rags.

The Sisters rushed inside and continued the descent. Hopefully the 'delay' wasn't long enough for others to notice. Or the sound of gunfire. Everyone pointed their weapon at the door ready to fire when it opened for them.

There was no ambush.

The corridor split in three directions. The Sisters moved without orders into the correct position to watch all of the approaches. Gloria and half a dozen quick-marched along the central way, the rest of the squad folding back into line behind them. One lay a booby-trap for the next users of the elevator.

Quick progress was made to the generator chamber: It spread outwards and upwards into darkness when the corridor ended. The size of the chamber was larger than any convent or cathedral the Sister's had ever seen and for a moment they were lost in awe. It was Rachael who noticed the danger first, a technician like the ones they had just cleansed of heresy staring at them thirty meters away, on the close side of the enormous chamber.

"Get him!" Rachael pointed. Her weapon was out of range otherwise she would have lain the heretic low herself.

Her request shook the awe from the Sisters and the technician was quickly cut down. However the sound of the bolters echoed dramatically in the chamber over the sound of the generators, giant turbines that glowed with a malevolent red light.

"Verona, cover the west, Rachael: east!" Gloria quickly snapped out her command. She, Marie and two others raced as fast as they could across the width of the generator cavern, red armour as large as ants to humans in comparison to the generators. The other Sisters covered their rapid advance to the metal stairs that lead to the control office. They all could see faces pointing down at them.

Green bolts began to flash down at them from the office.

Bolter fire raced back up in reply shattering the office's resistant glass shield. The lasgun fire stopped, suppressed by the overwatch teams.

Sister Ariete lead the way up the steps, four at a time with great strides, knees lifting up to her chest. One gloved hand used the rail to propel her quickly up, the other held onto a frag grenade, ready to hurl it through the office doorway if it opened. The other's bolters aimed over her shoulder meant she didn't need to worry about her own.

The door did open for a moment. Not enough time for Ariete to throw the grenade as the heretics inside saw the close danger and shut themselves back in the office.

"By numbers," Gloria said.

Sister Ariete put away the frag grenade and replaced it with a charge. She rushed up to the landing before the door, placed the charge and then took cover as much as possible.

The explosive went off two seconds later, a deafening roar that was quickly swallowed into nothingness by the cavern. Immediately after Sister Ariete had the barrel of her bolter pointing into the office: the door had been blow to bits along with a large part of the wall. Gloria and the others rushed up and they entered the office.

Two technicians lay bleeding to death by the door; one had a missing arm and both were badly burnt. Gloria saw another technician crouching behind a swivel chair and there was a lasgun by his feet. She shot him without thought. A few more short bursts and it was over; all the hetetics had been slain and the office was under their control.

Sister Marie checked the office control panels. "Damage is negligible, we can control the power feeds from here, Sister Superior," she reported.

"Good. Get me a line to Captain Yegenov. Our mission is successful."

"Yes, Sister Superior."

Sister Marie turned to her task.

Bolter fire erupted down below.

Gloria rushed to the shattered window and peered over the edge. Flashes of light came from the east squad.

"Rachael, report!"

It was too far to see properly. Flashes in one direction and green lights coming from the other gave some indication.

"They came up before we had any idea. Sister Henrietta is wounded but can still fight."

"How many?"

"More than a dozen. Fast too. I think we've got them pinned."

"Verona, any movement your side?" Gloria checked on the other team.

"No, Sister Superior. Should we assist?" Verona replied and asked.

"It's under control!" Rachael said. "Faith! I wish they'd come closer so I could burn them."

"Ariete, Marie, stay here," Gloria ordered the two Sisters. She and the other returned down the stairs, clanking heavily, and went to Rachael's position. The firing had mostly stopped. When a lasgun did fire the Sisters would respond with a deadly rain that quickly silenced the attacker.

In pairs the six Sisters leap-frogged their way forward until they came to the heretics position. What they found was a disgusting surprise.

"Mutants." Rachael spat.

The heretics were not ordinary humans. Their features had been grotesquely altered. One's head was bulbous with large eyes that poked out. Its colour was like infant's flesh. Another had an additional arm that ended in a tripod claw. The arm itself was covered in a hard carapace – no protection against a consecrated bolt shell – and purple. Other's had similar mutations.

"Sister Marie, have you opened the communications channel yet?" Gloria talked to the Sister in the office.

"Not yet Sister Superior, there is a lot of interference. I'm also trying to use the station's dedicated system but I have to locate the Captain first," Sister Marie replied.

Next Gloria checked on Henrietta. A pair of lasgun burns were a fraction apart, the second able to penetrate the power armour and injure the Sister above the hip. She was still able to fight and the drugs from her suit had taken most of the pain away. Prayer would do the rest.

"They came from that tunnel, I think." Rachael said, pointing. The tunnel, a black dot, was hundreds of meters away.

"And they got that close before you saw?" Gloria asked incredulously of Rachael.

"As I said, Gloria, they were fast."

Gloria frowned. Mutant heretics had not been on the Comte's battle plan, but heresy took many forms and mutants were common in the Empire and had to be purified. On a planet like Terra Feugo mutations would not be uncommon either. However, the Sister Superior expected mutations that would make them better suited to the hot environment. The dead heretics looked just as fragile as ordinary humans. Speed, big heads and extra arms gave them nothing here. She checked her schematic; there were two other corridors leading into the cavern before the tunnel the attackers had come from. It would stretch her squad but the tunnel had to be investigated: if there was a coven of heretics then it was her obligation to destroy it.

The Emperor demanded no less.

The squad was reorganised. Verona's team was recalled and took possession of the office, one of the Sister's joining Gloria whilst Sister Marie remained behind. There was still no communication link.

"Or the Captain could just not be responding," Verona offered.

Gloria and the seven other Sisters approached the tunnel cautiously, bolters at the ready. No more mutants came out. Charges were placed on the doors of the other two corridors. The eight entered the tunnel, a line kept open with Verona.

The tunnel was incredibly humid, shining with moisture. In the generator cavern it was dry, all the moisture instantly vaporised by the turbines. Sweat started to bead on the foreheads of the Sisters who advanced cautiously, now bunched together. Rachael, eager to fire her flamer was in the front. Even so, her eagerness was cautioned and she stepped slowly.

The floor crunched beneath them.

"What are we walking on?" a Sister whispered.

Rachael lit the starter light of her flamer and pointed it to the ground.

Gnawed bones lay thick on the tunnel floor.

Torn apart bodies of technicians and civilians hung from the walls.

The stench reached their nostrils.

Gloria gagged, a Sister vomited. Rachael screwed her thin nose and said: "I don't like this."

Gloria covered her face with her hand and nodded. She had seen a lot of death, and inflicted it in the Emperor's Name, but it had been the death of war. What she saw now was something much different. Like the remains of a half devoured meal. The mutants were cannibals, eating the workers of the planet. They deserved more than Holy Retribution. They had to be eradicated from all existence.

A hiss, strong and sinister, silenced them all.

"Something's here."

Another hiss, more.

"Tighten up and head back to the chamber," Gloria ordered, a sudden dread turning her stomach cold.

The Sister's obeyed without hesitation, forming into a tight circle, shoulder to shoulder, bolters pointing outward.

"Verona?" Gloria said.

There was no reply.


	3. Litany III

LITANY III

"What is the situation?" a cross-armed Inquisitor Feordervich asked the Stormtrooper Captain Yegenov through a vidcom feed.

Yegenov finished saluting before answering: "I have secured the main control centre with B Company. A Company is continuing as planned to the Governor's Palace. C Company remains ready to drop onto the Palace to re-enforce the Governor's personal guard when the Sister's send word that they have finally captured the power station."

"You have not heard from the Sisters?"

Gunfire although faint, could be heard over the communication link. Fighting near the Comte's position was still in progress.

"No, Sir," the Comte answered.

The Inquisitor turned to the Psyker.

The Psyker, a withered bald man resting on an ikon topped staff closed his eyes and concentrated. The Inquisitor waited patiently, on outward features at least. None could read the inscrutable mind of a Witchunter. The Psyker opened his eyes.

"It is… difficult to see them, something is in the way… that I have not encountered before. They are alive but something threatens them, and the entire planet. Ah"

The Psyker then suddenly fell to the ground, unconscious. His attendants rushed to his aid. The Inquisitor frowned.

"Did you hear that?" he asked the Captain.

"Yes, Sir," the Captain replied without confidence. "Heresy comes in many forms; I am sure my force can handle it."

"Verona, Verona!" Gloria hissed into her mike. Trouble, like a wet chill, ran down her spine.

Rachael was next to her saying: "We should hurry, I don't like this at all."

Gloria more than agreed; if Rachael was troubled as well then that meant it was big trouble.

"At the double!" Gloria ordered. The Sisters, still in their compact all-direction formation picked up the pace and the tunnel's opening to the turbine cavern grew larger. The crunching beneath their feet gave way to solid manufactured material, a small comfort. They all had almost thought that the hissing had gone away until a terrifying screech resounded down the tunnel.

"By the Emperor, something's-" a Sister said in awed fear then her words were cut off as another Sister pressed down on the trigger of her bolter sending a hail of shells down the tunnel, red tracer rounds appearing like lances of lasfire, ricocheting off the walls, and off other things, others releasing tiny explosions, burst flesh of some kind.

"Hold your fire," Gloria ordered, wanting control.

Until one of the things leapt out of the wall, a purple grimacing face of razor sharp teeth and reaching talons, into the middle of her squad.

Half the Sisters were bowled over by the monster, a four-armed hissing gargoyle, that swept more to the ground with its carapace covered claws. It turned and faced Gloria directly, beady red eyes glowing caustically. It hissed at her, forgetting the other Sisters, and the four arms began to move rhythmically in a hypnotizing manner that made Gloria dizzy and her knees weak. She hardly saw the monster's face loom inches from her own.

"Gloria!" Rachael screamed and threw herself against the monster, sagging it with the weight of her power armour. The monster's eye turned on her and she shuddered but held tight. A claw raked across her face and blood filled her eyes. "Gloria…"

More Sisters leapt onto the monster, one for each arm and leg and brought it down to the hard ground where it struggled and writhed but could not dislodge the weight.

Gloria woke from her trance, being shaken by one of her Sisters. She saw the monster, and Rachael, bleeding. The monster was on the ground before her. She remembered her sword and drew it.

The monster looked at her again, ceasing most of its struggle. Even without the hypnotic motion of its arms the look from its eyes was powerful and the Sister Superior had to intone a chant of the Convent to dispel the effect it was having on her.

"Abomination!" she curved and thrust the blue glowing sword through the skull of the monster, rupturing purple skin and grey bone. Purple blood burst out of the fatal wound and the evil eyes dulled.

Gunfire, next to her and further away.

Gloria looked around, those Sisters that hadn't held the monster down were shooting in all directions. The firing further away, Verona. Rachael.

"Rachael, are you alright?" Gloria knelt down by the bleeding Sister who, a red gloved hand redder and slick with her own blood, held up on the wound nodded.

"I'll be fine. I hate it when this happens," Rachael replied.

The other Sisters had gathered their weapons and reformed the defence and were firing rapidly. There were more of the monsters, kept at bay for now.

"Lean on me," Gloria lifted Rachael's arm and put it across her shoulder and stood. The power armour made it easy. "You might have to use that soon," Gloria said, indicating the heavy flamer.

Rachael grinned, blood stained teeth. Gloria felt a pang of sadness, the wound would have to be treated quickly. Rachael was losing a lot of blood.

The Sisters retreated to the opening of the tunnel, keeping up a heavy barrage of bolter fire that kept the enemy at a safe distance. Sisters used the opening of the tunnel as cover, some lay down at the opening. Shell casings rattled off the walls and floor, adding another dimension to the cacophony of sound and echo.

"Treat her," Gloria put Rachael down and commanded a Sister who got to work immediately. Gloria then stared down the huge chamber and easily saw more tracer rounds reaching down from the command post.

"Verona."

"Sister Superior. What is going on?" Verona said over burst of fire including her own.

"We have been attacked by… monsters," the only word Gloria could describe them, fittingly. "What is your situation?"

"Mutants, lots of them. There are even scaling the walls," a loud explosion, "too many for us too hold off."

"Understood," Gloria replied, her situation was the same. "Have they cut off the way we came in?"

"Yes."

Not good.

"Casualties?"

"None so far, beyond Henrietta. They don't have many guns, but, by the looks of them if they get in here they'll make short work of us."

Gloria checked her own troops. Down the tunnel a pile of monster corpses was building. Sometimes she could see of the monsters, illuminated by passing tracers, try and rush up the tunnel. Fortunately the fire her Sister's was putting out was enough to kill any before they got too close. But they were getting closer, and ammunition was not unlimited. At least the mutants attacking Verona hadn't split off some of their force to attack her own from behind.

"Can you break out?" Gloria asked Verona. She waited impatiently for the reply. Every second was important now.

"Faith! They're on the roof. Not without a distraction."

"I'll give you one," Gloria promised. She didn't want to distract Verona any further with questions, not when she was fighting for her life.

"Rachael?"

"Yes," Rachael stood up. Stained bandage was wrapped around her forehead, the rest of her face pale and covered with smeared blood.

"Time to use your flamer."

Any other time Rachael would have grinned and hefted her heavy flamer up. This time she only nodded and walked to the middle of the tunnel's opening.

Gloria prayed that the monsters didn't like fire. Their bodies did not look fire-resistant.

The tunnel silenced for a moment as the bolters fell silent. Hisses replaced the chatter of Imperial violence followed by scraping and clawing as the monsters rushed forward for the kill.

"C'mon!" Rachael shouted and pressed down the flamer's ignition. The tunnel immediately illuminated as a forty-foot gout of orange and red promethium flame filled it, washing over the horde of suddenly visible monsters, before the flames engulfed them. Death screams replaced the malevolent hisses of moments before. Rachael swept the flames across the breadth of the tunnel. Not a single monster came through. When she let the death jet cease the all she could see were spot flames and reflections on the charred remains. "Hell yeah," she said.

During this time Gloria had taken most of the squad, leaving Rachael with two bolter armed Sisters, and rushed back down the chamber to where Verona was being overrun. Without pausing she and the other four Sisters started firing as soon as their weapons came into rapid fire range, storm bolters opening up first and cutting down the back ranks of the mutants, those that had weapons.

"Move it, Verona!" Gloria yelled. She lifted her bolter and fell to one knee, sighting down the length of the double barrels to the staircase where a line of mutants, fortunately not the monsters she had been fighting, was advancing up the stairs even as many of their number tumbled off, shot.

_They ignore the casualties._

Gloria fired. Tightly packed as the mutants were she could not miss. Five of them packed together jerked as bolt shells struck and exploded inside their bodies sending gouts of flesh and blood into the air. Their stricken bodies collapsed or fell of the stairs.

Survivors pointed and hissed at her.

From the blown office doorway two Sisters emerged, Marie and Verona, with their bolters held at their hips. They took the stairs two at a time and shot their way down fiercely. Another Sister tossed half a dozen grenades to the ground below and they went off like angry firecrackers, shrapnel scything down mutants. She then rushed after the first two.

Henrietta was the last out, coming out backward with bolter raised to the ceiling, firing all the time. Gloria looked to the roof and many mutants were on it. They scrambled, a few were hit, two appeared on the lip of the office about to jump.

Stormbolters sent them to the Emperor's judgement.

Safe, Sister Henrietta turned around and began to descent the staircase. She did not see the mutant, both of its arms the same as the monster's, rise from the office, and on coiled legs spring into the air. Those that did see could not react fast enough or shout any warning.

The mutant landed on Henrietta's back and the two of them crashed forward. The mutant was on top, a long tongue lashing about its inhuman face, and it lifted one arm high, the other pushing down on Henrietta's back, and then that three pronged claw came down.

Revenge was swift but too late. The mutant's body was destroyed, exploded into hundreds of small pieces as bolter after bolter fired upon it in cathartic agony. The closest Sister on the stairs turned around and went after the body of Sister Henrietta to recover it. Verona yelled at her to come back, ordering the Sister who reluctantly obeyed; more mutants appeared.

The three Sisters ran through the milling throng of mutants, a channel opened by their weapons and those of Gloria's force.

"Don't stop running, head for the south corridor," Gloria yelled as Verona approached. "Rachael, head there too."

"Got it."

The two groups of Sisters broke contact and fell back as quickly as they could, meeting close to the mined door.

"The flamer kept them back; they didn't want to come and get fried again," Rachael said, joining up with Gloria.

Verona organised the defence around the door as Gloria and Marie went to work on disarming the mine they had put there not long ago.

"I never got to contact the Captain, Sister Superior," Sister Marie said as she worked, connecting wires from her suit to the mine.

"Don't be concerned," Gloria replied. The Captain knowing her squad's situation would have helped, if he would have done anything about it. Likely not, she thought bitterly, before berating herself for those thoughts. He was an Imperial Officer and would serve the Emperor, just as she did, to the best of his abilities.

They were not attacked. No monsters emerged from the tunnel, the mutants slunk back into the shadows out of range. A carpet of their down dead demoralising perhaps?

The door opened. Too late Gloria aimed her weapon. There was nothing on the other side however. Luckily. If there had been any of the monsters she would be dead and her squad wiped out. Next time guns would be ready.

"Let's go," Gloria waved her squad through as it fell back on itself. She counted the number, ten, before leaving the cavern. Sister Marie rearmed the mine and shut and locked the door.

"The mine will kill a lot of them, but also blow the door apart. They'll be able to come after us then," Marie told her Sister Superior quietly.

"Let's pray they don't follow too soon," Gloria responded.

"Platoon A-1 is coming under sustained attack, Captain," a seated sub-lieutenant said. "They're in hand to hand combat."

Comte Yegenov turned sharply. "Hand to hand? Hadn't Sudtler set his point defence positions correctly?"

The Captain walked over to the communicator and picked up the vox. "Lieutenant Sudtler, this is Captain Yegenov, report."

"Sir!" came back a breathless voice, "they're all over us. I -" a horrible scream followed by tearing sounds filled the room. All the Staff looked at the Captain in alarm.

"Sudtler? Sudtler!"

No response. Yegenov put the vox down slowly giving himself time to recompose. The scream had affected him too.

"Platoon A-2?"

"Just sniping, Sir. A-3 has no contact."

A-3 was in a perimeter outside the room. A-2 was next to where A-1 had been. They would be attacked next.

"Order A-2 to pull back to A-3's position; it will shift over." That would tighten his defence although give up a lot of the facility back to the enemy. Yet, A-1 had been destroyed. How had the heretics managed to do that? "Get me the Inquisitor."

"Holy Mother!" someone shouted from the window-lined wall that overlooked one of the heating shafts.

"Control yourselves!" Yengenov commanded as the Staff rushed over to the windows and started exclaiming themselves and pointing down.

Yegenov pushed his way through to the window and gazed down as well. What greeted his eyes stilled his own determined heart.

Up the circular wall of the heating shaft came, like a swarm of bugs, dozens of four-armed, purple bodied zenomorphs. And they came quickly. Pulling out his pistol: "Get a squad in here, now!" He fired at the window, exploding it. As glass flew about, swirled by hot air rushing into the room, he walked to the opening, hat sucked off his head to vanish, and leaning out, started firing.

They ran through corridor after corridor, directed by the schematic in Gloria's suit. She prayed that it was accurate.

Her objective was simple: find the Captain's Stormtroopers and fight with them. Any thoughts about the mission were long, left back in the heating chamber along with the scores of mutants and monsters, and Sister Henrietta. Her mouth moved in silent Litany for the dead. When she returned to the Chapel on the spaceship she would give proper Rites for the slain Sister. She entertained no thoughts about any more Sisters dying, or not getting back at all. Her responsibility was to get all of her Sisters back, alive.

Unless commanded not to. This she hoped the Captain or the Inquisitor were not like.

Her squad was far below where the Stormtroopers would be. One company was at a heating tower with the Captain, another further away near the Governor's Palace. She would try the Captain's force first.

They encountered no more mutants, just stunned workers, which they ignored and ran past, boots ringing down the clean corridors. The infestation had not come far from the lower depths.

Ammunition was shared out. Most of what they carried had been expended already against the monsters. Too much. Gloria did not berate her Sisters for the wasteful expenditure. This was an enemy they had not fought before. Heretics, mutants, even Orks. Nightmares, no. She couldn't say anything, her own bolter was depleted of shells. She had been afraid too. She asked for the Emperor's forgiveness.

"There's the elevator," Verona said.

Ahead was the elevator shaft that would take them up to the middle levels and an exposed bridge that crossed the exhaust shaft. On the other side was another elevator that could take them to the Stormtroopers.

A vision, brief, of a figure robed in black standing before an altar.

Gone.

Gloria shook her head. A hand touched her shoulder, Rachael's. "You okay?" she was being asked. She laughed. Rachael looked at her strangely.

"You saying that? You look like you have been through ten battles," Gloria said.

"And I'll be through ten more, Emperor Willing," Rachael said. "Let's go."

The eleven of them filled the elevator. It wasn't a cargo one like they took earlier. Guns, and a flamer nozzle, pointed at the doors nervously.

The Sisters piled out as quickly as the opening doors would allow. Outside was safe. Turning right they made their way down a corridor that grew increasingly heated. The bridge was not enclosed and the air of the exhaust tower occupied the corridor as well.

They approached the bridge cautiously. Some mutants had been able to climb walls and as they were corrupted hybrids of the monsters, a sick mating of human and monster, the monsters would be able to climb walls as well. More guns pointed up than level.

Gloria, sword in hand, ran onto the bridge. The sudden heat and updraft almost sent her sprawling and she took grip of the railing with her free hand. White hair swirled frantically around her face.

"Look," Sister Marie pointed. Her voice was sad.

Gloria instantly knew why. Ten floors above them was the level where the Captain and his men were. She knew because muzzle flashes were coming from a line of broken windows. The flashes were pointed down and her eyes followed until they came to rest on the Stormtroopers target: a climbing mass of the purple monsters she had just fought. They were like a living wall of carapace. Occasionally one would fall and disappear silently, vaporised at the bottom of the shaft. They rest continued to climb coming ever closer to the windows. Not enough were being killed.

"Can you reach the Captain now?" Gloria asked. The other Sisters had joined her on the bridge and were also watching the vertical tide. No monsters were on their side of the bridge.

Sister Marie tried and nodded.

Gloria opened the channel. "Captain Yegenov?"

"Who's this?" a shaky voice replied. Certainly not the Captain's.

"Sister Superior Gloria," Gloria answered rotely, what other women were there? "I want to speak to the Captain."

"Wait a moment, he's fighting."

Squinting Gloria believed she could make out the figure of the Captain leaning out the window and firing down at the monsters. She had to admire him too. He was the kind who would elect to stay and fight to the death if he had to, surrounded by wounded but defiant Imperial soldiers, a recruitment poster's hero. Gloria was shamed by her earlier thoughts.

The Captain came on line. "Sister Gloria?"

"Yes, Captain. I-"

"Why aren't you at your post? I saw you and your women on the bridge below."

"Sir, we were attacked by the same monsters that are climbing up the tower. Their… hive, was located next to our objective." Bad thoughts returned, Gloria could not believe that she would be questioned about her objective when they were all in danger of being overrun. These monsters were beyond heresy.

"Well, shoot at them then, you can do that can't you?"

Gloria frowned but thought she heard an undertone of worry on the Captain's voice, that the 'order' was more of a request for help. She was about to reply when another voice came over the communication link. One not at all in control of himself.

"They're here! They're in and killing us all!" cried a lost cause. There was a single, loud, shot, and the voice was gone.

"Get a move on, Sisters," was the last Gloria heard from the Captain as the sounds of gunfire grew louder.

The monsters were at the lip of the window, hellgun butts trying to knock them down. A Stormtrooper was caught and yanked out of the room; he fell screaming down the tower.

"Sister Superior, what do we do?" young Sister Helen said. Fear was in her eyes and she held onto the Stormbolter tightly to stop her shake from overtaking her.

"Kill some of them," Gloria said, "with your weapon."

Only the Stormbolters had the range to reach the monsters. The two weapons chattered noisily in controlled bursts. The monsters were so tightly packed that missing was impossible. Ammunition had to be conserved however. Pieces of monster fell, whole bodies. Only a small consolation for the Stormtroopers.

Gloria checked the schematic for the other location of the other Stormtrooper company. It was them or.

The Palace.

They could reach the Palace. Emperor let the monsters not have taken it over. The Palace had landing facilities for an extraction or re-enforcements. They hadn't landed that way because the heretic's heavy weapons would be trained on the pads. If the Stormtroopers had destroyed them then getting out or getting help was possible. If she knew the Inquisitor he'd send down more men, leading personally, to destroy the infestation. Gloria would welcome his presence.

Gloria quickly made up her mind and plan and passed it on to her squad. Reluctantly, although they could do nothing, they turned from the bridge and went back into the facility. Their pace did not slow. Each moment could mean discovery and the further they were from the battle, or massacre as many thought, the better. The closer to the Palace the better as well.


	4. Litany IV

LITANY IV

"Communication with Captain Yegenov has been lost, Inquisitor. I can contact Company B; they have not been able to reach the Captain either," a brown habit-wearing Acolyte said to his superior, the stern-faced Inquisitor Feordervich.

The Inquisitor nodded, suspecting as much. From the last vid-feeds sent by the Comte's command staff he knew what their fate would be, and instantly ordered his scribe to search the records for matches of the creatures. The answer came back quickly and it was enough to make the Imperial Judgement think of Exterminatus.

But only as a last resort. If the genestealer infestation could be contained and neutralised then it would not be necessary to steralise the entire planet of Terra Feugo. The Imperium did not like loosing worlds, and then there was the paperwork.

"Can you raise Sister Superior Gloria?" the Inquisitor asked.

"I can, Sir. Do you want me to?"

"Tell them that I will speak to them shortly," he replied. First he had to formulate his plan with the limited forces that he now had at his disposal: one company of Stormtroopers, obviously no match for the inhuman killing machines that had destroyed Company A in efficient order, his own retinue that whilst experienced, he did not want to sacrifice on the front line, himself, and mad Priest Rasputin's flagellants.

Just thinking about the slathering Priest made Feordervich's skin crawl, and few things unsettled the Inquisitor at all. Rasputin was something else, much more than a holy man. Some said he was a prophet and could tell the future. Feordervich only had him on board his ship, locked in a storage hold with his servants, because Rasputin's brother had been his mother's Confessor. Feordervich believed that it was the death of Rasputin's brother at the hands of heretical traitors that sent the Priest insane. Recalling the animal ferocity of the genestealers the Inquisitor wondered which of the two was the worst.

"Have all forces assemble at the main hanger where I will address them in half an hour. I must prepare for battle."

Gloria ordered her squad to take a break, two Sisters on guard by the door at all times. They had repaired into a canteen to slake their first. The nutrient feeds from their power armour could only do so much in a high-stress environment.

Verona went over to where Gloria sat, looking at the base's schematic, and sat down beside her offering a bottle of water. "Drink this, you need it."

Gloria took the bottle. "Thanks," she said. The chilled water refreshed her throat and helped dry away the heat of the exhaust tower.

"Found a way into the Palace?" Verona asked quietly.

Gloria put the bottle down and shook her head. All the entrances they had found so far had either been barricaded too well for their explosives, or already destroyed and unpassable. There was no way in, unless the defenders opened one for them, and they had not been able to find or contact any.

Company B was also no help. Traitors and mutants had surrounded the position and were besieging the Stormtroopers. So far no monsters had made an appearance but that would change when they arrived after slaughtering the Captain's force. For now, Gloria had looked on, the Stormtroopers were holding their position and it was well fortified, but isolated. Gloria did not want that to happen to her Sisters; keep moving was the key to survival for her small band but options were running out.

"Sister Superior!" Sister Marie ran up to her superior. "It's the flagship!" The communications Sister looked relieved, as if the saviour had already come to rescue them.

"Finally!" Verona exclaimed. Gloria through her a look and she fell silent.

"Sister Gloria here," Gloria announced, patching into the channel.

"Sister Superior. The Inquisitor will speak to you shortly. Advise of your current situation, over," a safe communication's officer most likely said. Gloria related her squads encounter and was in turn told of the enemy they had faced. Genestealers, advance forces of a Tyranid invasion. Both words meant nothing to the Sister, her battles had been against heretics and a few times Orks. Her new knowledge of the genestealers was that they were fast and deadly. The short communication ended and the other Sisters crowded around her. She told them what she had been told.

"So the Inquisitor is coming down to save our butts again them is he?" Rachael said.

"You spent too much time with the Stormtroopers, Sister Rachael, to talk like that," Gloria frowned. The formal tone to her friend showed her displeasure. Chastised, and a little hurt, Rachael drifted to the back of the crowd.

"Do we wait here until they arrive?" Sister Helen asked.

"I don't know," Gloria replied, "until Inquisitor Feordervich tells me his plan. I doubt he is coming to the planet just to save us."

"It must be bad if he is. The… genestealers were tearing those Stormtroopers apart." Verona said.

"Have Faith, Sisters. Faith in the Emperor above all else, Faith in the Inquisitor, Faith in your weapons, and Faith in each other. We will survive this," Gloria said strongly. She was the leader and could show no weakness at times such as the current.

The Sisters went back to their thoughts. Some checked and cleaned their weapons using the water and towels in the canteen. Others counted the few rounds of ammunition that they had left. A few sat and waited, nervous. All moved their lips in silent prayer. Even Gloria found herself holding onto her Ikon, tied loosely around her waist.

They did not have to wait long before the Inquisitor came onto the channel personally.

"Sister Superior, I have been informed of your status. Tell me your plan?" the Inquisitor's voice was like granite over the channel, unyielding. Reassuring the Sisters who lived most of their lives within the stone walls of a Convent.

"I have tried to enter the Palace but the ways are blocked. Our ammunition is little. It was my objective to enter the Palace and either defend there or extract," Gloria replied.

"A prudent plan for the survival of your small force. However, these genestealers are a menace to the Imperium and must be eradicated completely from this world."

"Yes, Inquisitor." Gloria felt her heart sink. Was her squad to be sacrificed after all?

"But do not despair,"

"Never, Inquisitor."

"Good," Feordervich said with a trace of amusement, "I have your location marked. Ten points to the North East a barrage shall be laid down clearing the way for my assault force to land. You are to rendezvous with us there to be resupplied. Then we shall attack the heretics and their abominations and destroy them. Company B will hold its position on our flank and occupy the ordinary traitors."

"And what of the Palace Guard?" Gloria asked.

"The Palace is unreachable. Possibly all the defenders are already dead. Genestealers may have breached the defences."

Gloria asked a few more questions and then the conference was at an end. The passed on the basics of the plan to her Sisters and they got ready for the bombardment to begin. When it ended they would race as fast as they could to the drop zone.

Dressed in crimson, an Imperial Ikon hanging over his chest, Inquisitor Feordervich strode into the hanger and quickly inspected the lines of Stormtrooper Company C. All the men in their dark armour carried additional clips of ammunition and hand grenades. Flamers had been handed out to weapon specialists. The men looked confident, although many cast sideways glances to the left and Feordervich's own lip curled.

That was where the Priest Rasputin and a dozen servants stood holding bloody chainswords and cleavers. Then there were half a dozen of the flagellants, half-man half-machine mockeries of life that had once been humans that had lived a life of crime or penitentiary-devotion, and had been branded to serve the Emperor as little more than thoughtless killing machines.

"Men," the Inquisitor shouted from the head of the parade. "Soldiers. Warriors! Today is your day to show your devotion to your Emperor, and to your comrades. The planet below is a haven of traitors! And a hive of aliens. Both must be destroyed to the safety of the Imperium. This is your task, and I know that you will accomplish it, because you have never failed me, or your Emperor before. You wear the Black because of this; the best of the best the Guard can train. Whom do you serve until Death?"

"The Emperor!" a hundred Stormtroopers shouted back.

"Whom do you serve in Death?" Inquisitor Feordervich raised his Ikon above his head.

"The Emperor!"

"Let us pray!"

The bombardment shook the room.

"Okay, Sisters, lets go!" Gloria picked up her bolter and jogged to the doorway. The rest of the squad fell in behind. The corridor was empty and they rushed down it; it was a kilometre to the drop zone and would take twenty minutes to get there. By then the assault force would have landed.

Half of time passed without incident. Then Sister Beatrice bringing up the back of the Squad announced that she could hear what they all dreaded: hissing. The genestealers had caught up to them or were heading to the drop zone as well to attack the re-enforcements.

"Faster!" Gloria shouted. If she stopped that would be the end. Her small force didn't have enough firepower or ammunition to hold off a sustained attack, and she didn't want to find out how many genestealers there were behind her. Beatrice was given a mine and she armed it against a wall before covered by two Sisters before they ran back to rejoin the others.

Not long after the mine exploded with inhuman screeches. The genestealers were not far behind.

The Sisters ran into an atrium. A staircase wound up, where they had to go. A fountain, cracked and empty resided in the middle of the room. The Sisters took the stairs four at a time until they came to the landing at the top. There Rachael turned around and ignited her heavy flamer.

"Here they come," she said plainly.

And she was correct. Spilling like an ugly tide through the opening the six-limbed genestealers entered the atrium. Then flashes and bursts erupted on the lead group, exploding their purple carapace bodies apart. Thick globs of alien flesh and blood splattered the floor. Corpses piled up on each other at the entrance.

But the wave pushed through. Genestealers took to the walls, using their long and sharp claws, easily wicket enough to slice through the power armour of the Sisters, to give them climbing purchase. More fanned out drawing the Sister's wavering fire, reducing the volume directed at just the one point.

"Keep them away from the walls!" Gloria shouted over the firing. "Don't waste your ammunition."

"Bring them on!" Rachael growled and went half day down the staircase to the shock of the others who called for her to come back. The impervious Sister ignored them, a finger waiting on the trigger as a pod of genestealers rushed towards her.

They came up the stairs with fast leaping bounds almost too fast for Rachael to react. Her finger pressed down at the last possible moment; compressed gas was expelled from the nozzle of the bulky weapon, coming into contact with a hissing blue flame and there it was transformed into boiling hell and propelled in a roaring, expanding cloud, down the staircase, the heatwave of which washed back over the Sisters searing their faces with intense, righteous, heat.

The genestealers crackled and burnt, blackened charcoal bodies breaking into chunks on the stairs, rolling off to shatter below, or vapourised completely, drifted on the heated currents like dead petals.

But there were more behind. Too many and they kept swarming forward, hissing and spitting, arms stretching forward wanting to rend the Sisters apart. Rachael sent more spurts of flame into the ever-closing enemy, retiring up the stairs one at a time until she was back with the others, no more space to retreat to.

Their firing was little more than a nuisance. More than half the Sisters waited with empty bolters for the inevitable.

"I've got one more blast," Rachael said. The monsters were on the walls and the roof and about to attack them on all sides.

"At least it will be quick," Verona put in, she didn't doubt that a genestealers claw could pierce her power armour.

"Everybody get back!" Sister Marie shouted, "NOW!"

Why? Rachael was going to yell back at her when the ceiling cracked and collapsed and the temperature soared and bright yellow and orange light blinded her. The noise was deafening, like the landing of a spacecraft.

Which was literally what was happening. A dropship had smashed its way through the layers above into the atrium, its jets and weight crushing over a dozen genestealers beneath before it came to a shuddering halt, more genestealers falling from the shattered roof or walls.

The Sisters too were blown down by the unexpected impact. Gloria pulled herself up and looked over the landing's wall to see the hatch of the dropship fall open. Jets of gas and steam hissed out blocking her view of the interior of the dropship and she could hear nothing, ears ringing.

The genestealers recovered with more speed forming into a phalanx by the front of the dropship but not advancing further. They too waited for what was going to come out, confident in their number of nearly two-dozen.

Through the gas seven forms stepped. Six of them were hunched over, near-dead looking emancipated bodies. One had half of its head removed, a clear plastic dome revealing a shrivelled brain connected to wires and tubes. Another was missing the bottom half of its jaw. All of them had instead of hands at the end of their limbs, whirling saws, blades, or spiked metal balls. Red eyes swept across the mass of genestealers.

The seventh figure, standing upright behind his minions, was the Priest Rasputin, a tall, hazard-bearded dark-skinned man. In one hand he held a large volume of Imperial Writ. The other was a pistol in the shape on an Ikon, at bladed at the back. His eyes were mad, possessed. He pointed at the genestealers.

The two packs rushed at each other. One pack organic monster, the other synthetic. The arco-flagellants, arms spinning chaotically, scythed their way into the middle of the genestealers, limbs and gore flying into the air. The genestealers tore back, ripping chunks out of the flagellants; yet that did not stop them, their minds detached from all sensation except that killing enemies made them feel good. The flagellants liked to feel good, better than feeling nothing. The killing thus continued, a massacre of both sides. One flagellant, so overworked, so overjoyed, a detached leer on its lipless face, simply stopped moving and fell over, cardiac arrest. Five genestealers lay around it.

When it was over, and it was over quick, the flagellants were little more than pieces of ripped flesh and metal. Only a few genestealers remained, most a pulpy mess. Rasputin drew attention to himself by shooting one. The others ran at him only to be shot down by the last of the Sister's ammunition.

Rasputin looked up at them and growled unintelligibly. Spittle covered his beard.

"That was… insane," Sister Marie said, shocked. Adrenaline was so thick through her bloodstream that her eyes were wide and circular and she was having trouble standing still.

"Let's get out of here, we still need to rearm and this isn't over," Gloria announced.

And it wasn't. Fighting raged for the remainder of the day as C Company flamed its way down into the depths of the power facility, Gloria's Sisters at the vanguard. The arco-flagellants had destroyed most of the genestealers along with themselves leaving only scattered groups that quickly fell to the massed firepower and flamers of the Inquisitorial force. B Company counter-attacked the mutants and drove them against the walls of the Palace where they were mercilessly butchered. Thoughtless servitors and robots were used to detonate bombs inside the genestealers lower tunnels.

As the sky unseen above turned to dark red Gloria led her Sisters back to where A Company had given its last stand. There the hardened fighters could barely look as the corridors and floor were a butchers workhouse. Red coated the walls, splattered the ceiling. Bodies, scores of bodies, floated in it. Sisters knelt and prayed for the cruelly slain.

Gloria kept walking until she came to the command office. The door had been ripped off its hinges, long tears running down it. Looking inside she saw more horror.

"Half a dozen bodies were piled on the doorway, trying to stop them from getting in." Inquisitor Feordervich said. His crimson robes were stained a different red, and some purple.

"They came in through the window," Gloria replied absently. She was numb; she had never seen anything like this before on any battlefield. "We couldn't do anything."

Feordervich nodded. Medics and Aides were sorting through the pile of bodies looking for missing limbs or heads trying to put bodies back together for transportation back to the ship and cremation.

"They fought to their last, I guess." Gloria tried to sound as if that were a good thing. Seeing such death… she couldn't feel any pride for the last stand. Loss. Somewhere in there was the Comte.

"Millions die everyday," the Inquisitor said harshly. "Throughout the Imperium against enemies we have no knowledge of. Against aliens, against heretics and traitors."

"Inquisitor?"

The Inquisitor laughed a short bitter laugh. "Do not think me having doubts, Sister Superior. Without this sacrifice billions would die instead, more than worlds, star systems would fall and Chaos would reign. Mankind would fall into darkness and not emerge without the Light of the Emperor. Death is the duty of a soldier."

"Faith is our shield against all enemies," Gloria said, instantly feeling stupid for a rote saying. The Inquisitor had just shared his unguarded thoughts with her.

Feodervich's own shield returned and he looked at Gloria from the corner of his eye. "Take your squad to the Governor's Residence. B Company has occupied most of the Palace and released detainees."

"Yes, Inquisitor."

"I will meet you there when this mess has been cleaned and consecrated."


	5. Litany V

LITANY V

Entering the Governor's Residence was a surreal experience after the violence of the past few hours. Firstly the Residence was very quiet. Except for the Battle Sisters a few maintenance servitors ran their chores and they passed by the occasional loitering Stormtrooper from B Company. Secondly it was unscarred, not a single shell having fallen into the compound, nor a spot of blood to be seen. The green lawns were trimmed to a uniform level and the plants strained to the artificial blue sky above. Inside the buildings, marble affairs, it was even disjoining, as opulent furnishings, paintings and high-comfort greeted the tired and battered eyes of the self-denying Sisters.

Two large paintings in the central entrance took their attention: the Governor and his First Lady. Both were handsome nobles impeccably dressed in baroque fashion. Most of the Sisters had seen such clothing before, once when their Convent's sponsor toured her donation.

Beyond the entrance was the ballroom and it was here the nobles and Governor and his family had been assembled, 'protected' by a heavily armed squad of Stormtroopers. The Priest was also there.

With a look of intense relief the Stormtrooper Corporal, helmet held in the crook of his arm, walked over to the Sisters and saluted to Gloria. She nodded back.

"I give control of the nobles to you, Sister Superior. And," a nervous sideways glance, "the Priest." Quietly the Corporal added: "He wants to examine the purity and loyalty of the nobles to the Emperor."

Gloria looked past the Corporal who clearly wanted to be out of the Priest's presence as quickly as possible. "Thank you, Corporal, you are dismissed."

The Corporal saluted again before returning to collect his men and quickly leave the room leaving Gloria alone with her Sisters, the nobles, and Rasputin who was walking up and down the line of standing and sitting nobles, glaring at them. He still held the voluminous book, stroking it harshly.

"Why are we here, Gloria?" Rachael said, bandage changed, over Gloria's shoulder. "We should be relieved."

"We are here because we have been ordered," Gloria replied tersely, still annoyed at Rachael's earlier behaviour. She walked over to the Priest and presented herself, the rest of the squad following slowly behind.

Rasputin turned at the sound of heavy footfalls and a mad grin appeared underneath his spiky beard. He gargled something intelligible and gesticulated at the nobles.

"He says that he wants you to assist him in Examination," a servant said, stepping out from nowhere.

"How can you understand him?" Gloria asked, looking at Rasputin out of the corner of her eye as he continued to point and babble.

"We both have nodes inserted into our cortex. I do not hear his words but read his thoughts. This is how I can translate," the servant replied with a short bow. A line of hair ran along the rim of his head but the top was shaved off.

Gloria nodded, not knowing what else to say.

"The Priest would like to begin now. He says that your purified Sisters should stand around the nobles to prevent any possible traitors from attempting to escape or take hostages."

The order to her squad was given and the power armoured women shuffled around the ornate furniture to surround the nobles.

"I demand an explanation!" one noble said, fury and insult overriding his fear of the Ordos Malleus warriors. The Priest hissed and spat at him.

"Sit down, Sir," Gloria said. "This is routine," she lied. She had no idea what happened during an official Inquisition. Or one presided over by an insane Priest.

"Yes Horchmarchall, do sit," a very feminine voice added. "You will only get yourself into trouble with the Sisters."

"Bah!" the man exclaimed. "And where is your husband, the Governor? Isn't he in charge here?"

Gloria looked from the Horchmarchall to the woman and recognised her as the First Lady in the painting although she was dressed much more simply in a blue dress lined with gold at the hem and cuff.

"I don't know where he has gone," she shrugged. Looking at Gloria she said: "When the Imperial forces came to rescue us from the heretics he vanished."

"Silence, I will begin the Examination now," the Servant said for Rasputin. "You!" Rasputin pointed, "Step forward and identify yourself."

The man at the end of the line nervously stepped forward and tried to look the Priest in the face but could not, preferring to stare at the ground, ceiling, anywhere but the penetrating gaze of the Priest. "I am Grunbol Elwar, the Governor's second cousin and Magistrate of Vespin, the second city –"

Rasputin hissed loudly and waved his hand in the nobles face. One of the Sisters thought it was a signal to execute a traitor and raised her bolter.

"No, no!" the translator quickly said. "Grunbol Elwar is no traitor to the Emperor. You can leave, Magistrate Elwar."

The Magistrate, shaking and white with fear, nodded fiercely before walking out of the ballroom as fast as his weak legs could carry him. The Sister who had just been about to kill him lowered her bolter sheepishly and shrugged to her comrades.

And that was how the hours passed; one by one Rasputin called a noble forth and raved at them, walked around and sniffed and waved his clawed hands but all were given freedom and eagerly sought escape from the terrifying ordeal; the next to be called did not expect to stand up to such a fearful encounter and dreaded being next to the Priest and being the one treated differently, called: Traitor and Heretic. Summary execution waited around them in the intense faces of the Sisters of Battle.

"Ungol Tevrenaman!"

A tall once-proud looking man in a now crumpled uniform complete with gold braiding on one shoulder stood and hesitantly took steps to the Priest who scrutinised him deeply.

"Execute the traitor."

The Sisters and remaining nobles blinked, shocked. Rasputin had said nothing. The Examination, unorthodox as it was, had not even begun.

"Shoot him, Sisters, he is a Heretic."

Sister Helen was the quickest to react, lifted her bolter and fired two rounds into the Governor's Chief Of Staff's chest. The explosions ruptured his ribcage and sent the corpse flying back into the rest of the seated nobles scattering them with screams and cries of horror.

"Take the body out and crucify it," Rasputin's jerky movements and slatherings were translated as. Two other Sisters closer to the body lifted it up by the armpits and dragged it away, the formally unblemished Residence now stained by blood.

Rasputin called the next noble forward. He couldn't move from where he had fallen on the ground, rooted in fear. The Priest came to him, as mad as ever. The noble fainted when he was cleared of heresy and allowed to leave. One Sister dragged him away.

The remainder were allowed to leave as well until only the Governor's wife remained, seated with hands clasped tightly together. Gloria stood as close as she could manage in the presence of the Priest, who was in front of the chair and staring at the First Lady in an almost murderous way. Amazingly the First Lady was looking back up at him but she could not bear the Priest's gaze for long and looked away, glancing at Gloria as she did so.

"You may go, directly to your room. When your husband is found you will be called for again," she was instructed by the Priest. "Sister Superior."

"Yes, your Eminence." Gloria responded.

"You will accompany the Lady to her quarters and ensure her safety and that she is ready for her summons."

"Yes."

There were no orders for her squad so Gloria dismissed them, a little envious that they now had the opportunity to rest and recover their senses after the battle. Verona shrugged at her as she followed closely behind the First Lady, escorting her back to her quarters.

Lady Morgana, as her maids called her upon arrival, walked briskly through the furniture and ornamental full rooms, amazing Gloria at their wealth. At the Convent her own room was a small dark affair with a stand to place her Ikon upon and a vidscreen. Ordinary Sisters slept in dormitories. On a warship or in the field accommodation was whatever could be spared.

Morgana whisked through the rooms, making sure that nothing was out of place during her departure. The maids bowed to her at the waist and she ordered a bath.

"I just have to get rid of the filth!" she exclaimed shaking her head. And then said: "What are you doing?" when Gloria followed her into the large marble bathing room.

"Lady?" Gloria said.

"I am about to take a bath Sister, does that nor earn me any privacy? Or will you follow me about everywhere?" the Lady said tilting her head to one side.

"Those are my orders, Lady."

They stared at each other, Gloria not really understanding what Lady Morgana was on about. Eventually the Lady gave up and walked behind a screen and her dress shortly appeared hanging over the top of it. A maid, blind, took the dress and folded it neatly in her hands.

Insane unintelligible Priests and blind maids, thought Gloria. In the middle of the bathroom was a large bronze tub, steam rising from it, and a strong perfumed scent that sent Gloria's tired mind spinning.

Lady Morgana came out from behind the screen, eyeing Gloria coolly as she did so, before sinking into the bath, back facing Gloria.

"You Sisters train for war and battle don't you?" the Lady asked.

"Yes," Gloria replied.

"Your fingers would be strong then. I have a pain below my neck, at the back. Massage it for me."

"Pardon?" Gloria stammered.

"You do know what I mean, don't you?" Morgana asked, tone slightly miffed, mocking as well.

"Yes." Gloria replied. Massage was a simple and effective way to sooth out aches and the stress of action. "Your maid?"

"Her fingers are to soft, delicate. This pain caused by your Priest is deep. I require stronger hands. And it is your fault."

Gloria wondered how that could be. However, the Lady was her superior by a large margin and had to be obeyed whilst there was no danger to her life. Pulling off her gloves the Sister Superior put them on the edge of the tub and one hand on each side of the Lady's neck. It almost looked like she was going to strangle the Lady from behind.

"Yes, very tough. Not as tough as a Marine's I think. Have you met any of the Adeptus Astares?"

"No, Lady."

"A shame. It would have been good if they had been here as well. Not that your presence is not noted. You fought very bravely."

"Thank you."

"Did any of your Sisters die?"

Gloria paused.

"Ah, I am sorry. I shall make a generous donation to your Covent to reward her sacrifice."

"The Convent would welcome your donation, Lady." Gloria said forcing back the image of Sister Henrietta's death at the hands of a mutant traitor. When Gloria re-opened her eyes she was looking down at the water, now free of steam; it rippled little, Lady Morgana still and looking at her through the water. Gloria looked back but the image she saw was not of the Lady: instead there was a twisted woman with a strange mark on her forehead and two ribbed golden horns rising out from her coiffure. The Sister started.

Lady Morgana turned sharply, the image torn away as the water rippled and waved. "What it is?" the Lady asked, powerfully.

"Nothing…" Gloria stammered. "I was just remembering…"

Warmth returned to Morgana's face and she put her hand on Gloria's. "I see that you are tired and need rest. It was wrong of me to keep you busy. I shall let you rest."

"I cannot, Lady, while you are in my charge."

"Nonsense. Nobody will dare to harm me and all the monsters have been killed. My husband won't come here either."

The Lady stood and exited the bath.

"You believe your husband to be a part of the uprising?" Gloria asked.

"The man killed was his Chief of Staff. Everything my husband knew he knew, and vice-versa. I am ashamed. I wonder what will happen to me if he is found guilty? I hear that families of traitors are treated harshly. Would it be possible for me to seek refuge in a Covent such as your own?"

"I don't know. I would have to ask my Abbottess. And the Inquisitor's command will be final." Gloria replied, fatigue starting to wear at her.

"I am sure you can help," Morgana said, smiling, "You are a kind woman."

Gloria felt her eyes closing against her will.

"The Comte's body is not amongst the dead, Inquisitor."

Inquisitor Feordervich turned at the news. "Then where is he?"

"I do not know. There are no survivors from A Company or the command staff and all deceased and able Stormtroopers have been accounted for," answered the soldier.

"Keep searching. His family will require news, and a body if he is dead."

Feordervich pondered, wondering what the Comte's vanishing meant. He did not think that the Comte had deserted his post; he was a honourable soldier and would not have left his troops to die without him. There had been no word of a break out attempt either; no other Stormtrooper had been able to, and no patterns amongst the dead to suggest an attempt. All the Stormtroopers of A Company had died at their posts. That left the possibility that the Comte had been captured and that some of the genestealers or their mutants were still alive. And the Governor was missing, possibly captured as well, or the orchestrator of the infestation and in hiding. Time would bring the answers as his men scoured the base and other loyalists aided in rounding up traitors for execution.

Gloria woke, a patterned ceiling coming into focus above her. She sat up, a satin sheet sliding down. She ignored it. Where was she?

"Awake at last," a familiar voice said. Gloria turned to the origin of the sound and was relieved to see Sister Verona seated in her habit not far away. Gloria ran a hand through her white hair.

"Where am I?" she asked.

"In Lady Morgana's study. You fainted and she brought you here and put you to bed," Verona couldn't help smiling but refrained from laughing at her superior. "You have been asleep for six hours."

"It does not feel like it. Where is the Lady?" she added, worried.

"Being watched over, don't you worry."

"Good. And you, are you rested?" Gloria also had to be concerned with the welfare of her squad.

"A little. The Lady had all of us moved her to guard her."

"Has something happened?"

Verona shook her head. "Nothing out of the ordinary when an entire planet is subject to scrutiny."

"Oh, just that." Gloria said as lightly as she could muster, which was not much. Fog still clung heavily to her head. "Where is the Lady now?"

"Having tea with the others."

"What?"

Sister Verona shrugged. "I don't know why either. She is asking a lot of questions about the Convent and how she can go there."

It would not be a first for a high ranked noble Lady to want to enter a Convent for a period of time in refuge or contemplation, or sent their by her family as a punishment to learn 'proper' ways from the Sisters.

"Yes, she did say that she wanted me to ask the Abbotess about it. Her husband the Governor has not been found and she thinks him part of the genestealers."

"Really?"

Gloria nodded and made herself stand. She would rest later, and not on a divan. Verona indicated with her head where her habit was and she donned it quickly, tying the cord around her waist.

Together they entered the room where the rest of Gloria's squad was seated, all in their habits, and trying to delicately hold small porcelain cups in fingers that gripped knives and held onto bolters. The Lady's maids held trays with pots and the Lady herself was seated on the edge of one chair, eagerly chatting to the mesmerised Sisters. When she saw Gloria enter she stood up and smiled.

"Are you feeling better, Sister Superior? You gave me such a fright."

"I am better now. You should not trouble yourself with my squad, they are capable of taking care of themselves." Gloria said.

"I am sure. But this is no harm."

"Yes, Sister Superior," Sister Marie said. "The Stormtroopers have the Palace secured. Until we have orders there is nothing to do."

"There is always time to Pray, Sister Marie," Gloria responded then softened her tone. "And thank the Emperor that so many of us survived."

All the Sister's heads bowed and they recited a litany for their fallen Sister.

"Don't spoil the new day, Sister Superior. I know you need to grieve but I do not want more depression to fall upon my house while I am in it." Lady Morgana said, offering a white cup to Gloria.

A scream and a tumble of china interrupted.

Sisters and Morgana snapped their attention to the origin of the cry; one of the maids who was standing, white-faced, hands covering her mouth. Her eyes looked down, wide and fearful.

"Captain Yegenov!"

Lying half through an open door was the bloody and tattered body of the Comte. One arm tried to move, to pull him further into the room but it no longer had the strength. It had already driven him far enough to find help before failing.

The Sister's rushed to him.

**A/N: First author's notes, and only about 12,000 words into the story! And it is already longer than I had expected. In fact it should have been finished in five parts but the battle became larger than anticipated – but that didn't make it worse did it? Gloria is meant to be a short story, I'll try and finish it by Litany VIII and in a week, two at the latest so I can concentrate on my much bigger original stories. Thanks for all the readers and comments, keep 'em coming by the Emperor! After a few weeks I will be able to upload photos of my SoB miniatures (soon to be sporting names from this story – Gloria's mini will blow you all away! i hope) onto my website (**** and maybe win a battle or two with them at GW. The new smaller store's smaller tables should let me employ more flamers. Go Rachael! I need to find a mad Priest Raputin figure, and a Monty-Python/Cardinal Richelue(sp) inspired mini.**


	6. Litany VI

LITANY VI

"How by Faith did he escape the genestealers?" Sister Helen asked, a question that all the present wanted to know.

"That only he can tell us, if he lives. Call of a surgeon immediately and notify the Inquisitor. He will want to know. I think the more important question why is he here?" Gloria said, looking at Lady Morgana. There was that image…

The Lady, her gaggle of maids standing behind, afraid, did not batter an eyelid.

Sister Marie as already making the calls as Gloria had ordered.

"Sisters Marie and Helen, both of you wait here. Sister Helen, I want you to look after Lady Morgana and her staff. Sister Marie, as soon as either the Inquisitor or surgeon arrives inform me."

"Yes, Sister Superior." Sister Marie complied.

"Where are we going?" Rachael said, easily on par with Gloria's thinking.

"He left a trail of blood. We will follow it immediately; hopefully if there are any enemy survivors – I believe that the Captain was captured, the only way he could have survived that massacre – they will not have been able to escape further." Gloria said. "Get your weapons, we don't have time to don power armour."

Rachael nodded, another Sister exclaimed: "What?"

"That's an order, we have to move quickly."

A few minutes later Gloria and eight other Sisters, bolter armed, or a flamer in the case of Sister Rachael, had followed the Captain's blood trail to a wall panel that was slightly ajar. Cautiously the Sisters surrounded the door before swinging it open suddenly and bursting in, guns ready.

The inside was stone, dry and bare. Protected only by their faith the Sisters made their way down the corridor. Without their power armour they moved quietly and in a compact formation, stormbolter held at the hip in front, bolters over her shoulder.

The Captain's blood trail meant they could move fast. They saw the spot where the Captain could no longer carry himself on his feet. Bloody handprints starting where afterwards it was just red smears along the ground. They were amazed that he had been able to move at all in his condition. A true warrior.

They came to a staircase heading down into darkness. How had the Captain been able to climb it? They all wondered, silently, as they took the stairs slowly and their eyes gradually became use to the dim light.

The bottom of the staircase was reached without incident. Then Sister Marie's crackling voice came through Gloria's earpiece. Other than her weapons, power sword slung low on one hip, the communicator was the only gear she had brought.

"Sister Superior, the surgeon is tending to the Captain and the Inquisitor is here as well." Sister Marie said.

"Can I speak to him?" Gloria asked.

"Yes, Sister Superior. He is waiting."

There was a small delay before the Inquisitor spoke. "What is your situation, Sister Superior?"

"We are following the Captain's blood trail through a secret or emergency tunnel or some sort, Inquisitor. So far we have found no one." Gloria replied.

"Continue. It is safe to assume that the Governor and any survivors will be located in this area of the Palace. It is not on the schematics; I am having the warship's scanners turned to the area to make a new schematic and will sent it to you," Feordervich said.

"I cannot receive it, Inquisitor. We are not in our armour."

"Ex- you are in your… habits?" the Inquisitor was momentarily stunned.

Gloria replied in the affirmative, cringing, expecting a reprimand but there had been no time to suit up.

"Continue," the Inquisitor said after a short pause, recollected. "And be careful. You all saw what happened to A Company."

"Understood. I least of all want to suffer casualties."

The communication ended.

Inquisitor Feordervich, his crimson replaced with black and brown handed a Stormtrooper's vox back to the soldier.

"Take your squad down after the Sisters and join them as quickly as possible," he told the squad's commander and he saluted, then acted to follow out the command with haste. To the surgeon, his own: "Will the Comte survive?"

The surgeon, standing over the Comte's body now on a gurney, looked grim. "It is a miracle of the Emperor that he is still alive. He has lost a considerable amount of blood. I can keep him alive for some time; plasma is being sent from the ship as we speak. If it gets here fast enough then his chances are good."

Feordervich nodded. "Keep me informed. He has important information."

The Inquisitor turned his attention to the governor's wife next.

"Did you know of the tunnel?"

The Lady, seated and alone, her maids dismissed, shook her head. "I am just a simple woman, Inquisitor. My missing husband has full rule of the household."

"That I doubt, Lady. Nonetheless whilst your husband is missing and suspect of heresy, and worse, you will be confined to your quarters. You can have one maid as company."

"You are so generous, Inquisitor," Lady Morgana said icily and rose.

Feordervich hated nobles who did not risk their lives daily for the Emperor, like the Comte. Being female was no exemption. Many brave heroines served in the Imperial Guard or as spies, their high class allowing them access to places no man could penetrate.

After the Lady retired his psyker entered.

"How are you?" the Inquisitor asked. His psyker was an important asset.

"Better, Inquisitor. The enemy?"

"Defeated, mostly. The Governor and an unknown number of heretics are still unaccounted for. What of the presence you felt?"

The psyker closed his eyes and concentrated; the presence that the Inquisitor had spoken of had been the reason for his faint at the start of the battle.

"There is still something, shifting, changing, but malignant. It is here… I… I dare not delve further. It is too strong for me."

The shadow passed and the psyker opened his eyes. Neither he nor the Inquisitor saw Lady Morgana's shadowed face vanish from the doorway, slightly ajar. The Inquisitor's frown deepened. He informed the psyker of Gloria's discovery.

"I will follow her. You are to conduct a séance and discover the nature of the disturbance. The Tyranids are known to have a strong psychic presence."

The psyker shook his head. "This does not feel alien. And I cannot help but feel that Sister Gloria is in grave danger and a terrible fate will befall her. Yes also, the Emperor's Light is strong with her."

"She is a brave one," the Inquisitor agreed. "An asset to the Imperium. Your insistence to save her against the Orks was a boon."

The corridor branched into three paths. Blood only went down one but the other two could not be ignored. The objective was not to find where the Captain had been kept, but to find and exterminate the last of the heretics and genestealers. Dividing her small force was risky, time against them.

Rachael, Verona and took two Sisters each. The other two were to guard the diversion point and wait for the Inquisitor.

Gloria continued down the corridor that contained the Comte's blood alone. It was still fresh, sparkling in the dimness. Only weak lights in the ceiling provided illumination to the shadowed corridor. Between each light there was a dark, impenetrable spot and the Sisters always approached cautiously but crossed quickly, as if staying for too long would bring some doom down upon them.

There was a doorway, open. The first door they had come to. Possibly they were now in the heart of the secret base. Gloria unsheathed her sword, it glowing with a faint blue light, and entered the room first.

Inside was a stone slab. On it, spilling over, was blood. An impossible amount of fresh blood. Something sparkled on the floor and she bent down warily, and picked it up. It was a badge, the Eagle. A nametag with E. Yegenov stencilled on it. The room was where he had been taken. Otherwise the room was empty.

Gloria walked around the slab and slipping suddenly, almost cracked her head against the stone.

"Ah, what is this?"

Gloria was going to say blood but when she looked down she saw that it wasn't just. It was more. Much more.

"By the Emperor," she gasped.

Rachael led her group with a purpose. Firstly that she wanted to find the heretics, even though they were aliens, and incinerate them with her flamer. They had wounded her. They had killed many Imperial soldiers. They weren't human. And they had made Gloria mad at her.

It was all their fault, and she wanted revenge. Bloody revenge.

The two Sisters flanking her, Nicole and Emily, shifted their bolters around from back to front. They were good fighters and always in her sub-squad. They rarely talked, using a combination of hand, body and eye signals to communicate. They were her protégés.

The corridor ended with an ornate doorway. Upon it were all kinds of runes that made the Sisters feel sick. They continued, the foulness strongest as they passed through. The room they entered was large and not empty.

There was one tall well dressed man in the middle of a kneeling crowd of blue and purple mutants. He held on a leash a genestealer. It saw them and hissed hatefully.

Verona and her pair checked room after room. Most of them were empty cubicles, cells with dry stains and nail scratches in the stone. Others were storerooms. One an office with rolled up scrolls. The Sister opened one: it contained a table of names and the length of time held, cell number, and how long they had taken to die when tortured. It was grim reading. She wished she had a flamer and could have cleansed the room.

"Sister, I think I hear something coming," the Sister guarding the door whispered.

"Back in the room," Verona said quietly, picking back up her bolter. The three of them pressed their bodies up against the wall next to the door and left it open a fraction.

They waited for what felt like an eternity, straining their ears to hear before a sound did register. A shuffling kind of noise completely different to the clatter and scramble of a genestealer. Probably a mutant then. They would wait for it to pass so they could see and judge it before attacking.

The noise grew louder. It was inconsistent. There would be noise, then nothing. It moved without pattern however, it stopped at any moment, waited for a minute or seconds before continuing. This approach worked at the Sister's nerves, fraying them.

Silently they recanted litanies to calm their minds and stay their patience. Recklessness would get them all killed.

Then there was gunfire, bolters, brought down the hallway by the cold stone.

Gunfire!

Gloria's head snapped from the grisly remains she had slipped on. Thankfully tearing her attention away from dissected heart, lungs and sliced bowels. The heart, she had noted with bile rising quickly up her throat, was still beating if slowly, and the lungs pumping as if alive.

Bolters.

Rachael's group, or Verona's. Or the rearguard.

"Hurry!"

The sickening find was left behind, gratefully, and she dashed back down the way she had come. There she met the two Sisters on guard and they pointed the way the firing was coming from.

"Rachael," Gloria said. "Get Verona immediately," she told them one and with other Sister in tow, ran down the corridor Rachael had taken.

"Judge them!" Rachael shouted. Her flamer was in range and she wanted to use it.

The mutants scrambled for cover as quickly as they could. Rachael's consecrated promethium flame purified the mass in the centre, incinerating the flesh leaving only charcoal or black bone when the flames died away. Nicle and Emily fired on either side of the blazing fire sending more heretical mutants to the Emperor for eternal punishment. The genestealer and its master managed to find sanctuary behind an obsidian throne. Bolter shells ricocheted off it.

The three Sisters, looking even more holy dressed simply in their habits entered the smouldering room.

"Come out and surrender," Rachael said. "Your time has come."

"Fool!" the man behind the throne yelled back. "Look around you. Your doom will come now. The Hivemind will consume the Imperium slowly."

Rachael ignored the remarks. She moved to the side wanting to be able to flame the throne and the enemies behind it, but stay a good distance from the genestealer.

Two mutants rushed from their cover; Nicole shot them both down in an orderly manner. The others stayed hiding.

"Are you the Governor?" Rachael asked.

"That I am, woman!" he replied. "And so you cannot harm me. I demand arrest and trail, and protection from my wife."

"What is he saying?" Emily said.

"I don't know," replied Rachael. "He is crazy." Then louder: "You are in league with aliens and a traitor to the Emperor. I have all the authority I need to send your miserable soul to hell."

Just then the genestealer broke free of its restraint, wanting only to kill as it had been designed to do and leapt at the Sisters. It did not make it, burnt to a cinder.

"They were the only ones that could have stopped her!" the Governor screamed and came out from behind the throne, brandishing a long discoloured talon in both hands. Rachael flamed him but the fire washed around a sparkling shell.

"Nuts!"

The remaining mutants came out as well and engaged Sister's Nicole and Emily. Without their power armour the struggle was better matched. Rachael had to use the bulk of her flamer to fend off the Governor's assault but she was knocked down and he pushed one foot onto her chest, keeping her there. She snarled at him. He snarled back and got ready to thrust the talon down through her body.

But the talon did not fall.

A sword sliced through the air and smote him, shearing the talon in twain. The Governor's expression changed from one of hate to that of shock. How had he been killed? Should not have his field protected him from harm? His hands grabbed onto the blue glowing blade, gaining some answer to the fatal mystery. He looked away from Rachael, coughing blood.

Gloria stood there, arms out stretched from the throw, guided by fate and more to strike true. She waited without moving until the light expired from the Governor's eyes and he collapsed to the ground, dead.

The melee had not finished.

Devoid of a leader the mutants fought with increased ferocity. For them there was only death; to inflict before they would be killed themselves. With Gloria's arrival the numbers were near equal and slowly the tide turned against them as Verona arrived and after her ten Stormtroopers who barrelled into the fray, eager to impress, and armoured, better suited to withstanding the hands, claws and fangs of the mutants.

It was over.

All the Sister's were bloodied and tore at their habits to bandage each other's wounds. A Stormtrooper medic injected antitoxins and agents into their arms to counter any infection that might have been introduced into their bloodstream by the foul mutants.

The Inquisitor took that moment to arrive and look around with displeasure.

Verona, about to say something to Gloria, was overruled by the Inquisitor.

"No survivors?" he asked.

"No, Inquisitor. I had to kill the Governor, he was going to murder one of my squad." Gloria replied. She didn't like the look the Inquisitor gave, that such a loss would have been acceptable if the Governor had been captured alive.

"Unfortunate. However, the infestation has been dealt with and the planet now free of taint."

"I am not sure about that, uh, Inquisitor," Verona said, realising that she had just back-answered a very superior, superior.

"Sister!" Gloria exclaimed.

Verona felt it was best to continue before she was punished. "While we were searching the cell block we heard a noise and took refuge, waiting for it to pass us by so we could see it. It came close, a shuffling noise like a wounded person, but I don't think whatever it was, was wounded. I think it was patrolling. It must have heard Sister Veronica coming and returned from whence it came. We didn't see it."

"Could you tell if it was human or alien?" Inquisitor Feordervich said, stepping forward.

Verona's tale jogged Gloria's own memory and she cut in as well. "We found where the Captain was held, and what I think are his internal organs. But they were still beating and none of the blood had dried. It was fresh as if only just spilled."

"What? That is impossible, a man cannot survive without organs."

"I know…" Gloria said, suddenly feeling breathless. "I don't think that it was the Captain anymore – not the one we knew." Faintness was beginning to claim her, sweat beginning to bead on her forehead. Something… she felt, was happening. Something bad. Evil.

"Who was it then?" Feordervich pressed loudly.

"Didn't you feel something when you entered the room?" Sister Rachael thrust in.

Feordervich growled, he was not in charge. All these women were chattering excitedly amongst themselves like hens. Women! "Sisters!" he exclaimed.

"I did not feel anything, until now," Gloria said, pressing a hand against her stomach; it felt like it was churning and that she was about to vomit. It was a nauseous sensation that all in the room were afflicted by. An odour assailed their nostrils.

"Gas!" the Stormtrooper commander said and his squad snapped their visors closed. The Sisters had no such recourse and gagged. The Inquisitor covered his mouth with a gloved hand and that was enough for him it seemed.

"Look at that!" it was Sister Nicole who spoke, pointing at the black throne.

Which now glowed with a green, leprous, light.

"Inquisitor?" the Stormtrooper commander said urgently. "Orders, Sir?"

Inquisitor Feordervich reached into his tunic and pulled forth an elegant, viscous, pistol and took a silver stake in the other hand.

"Take your positions." He said simply. "For whatever happens."

A/N: What, no reviews? Are you all waiting for the finale, or is it just a load of rubbish? Or soooo good you're all stunned? Hoho. In this Litany things have changed, gotten better I think, than what I had planned. I like the unexpected, mind still working as I type. The next Litany(ies) will be gooood.


	7. Litany VII

LITANY VII

Inquisitor Feordervich stood in front of the throne weapons at the ready, waiting for what was to come next. Gloria would have preferred it if he had taken cover like the Stormtroopers. Her squad waited near the Inquisitor providing some support.

The sickly glow emanating from the throne grew brighter, and darker, darker in intelligence.

"We shouldn't be here."

Gloria didn't know who had spoken. She agreed hole heartedly. The Inquisitor was in command however and his orders were to be obeyed. The Inquisitor said nothing, patient. Gloria remained silent as well; she would back up commands given by the Inquisitor but if he said nothing to quieten dissent, neither would she.

Was anything happening in the Residence above? Gloria wondered while her mind was still free. A dead Comte was there, but somehow alive. Some kind of sorceress force had brought him up from below. There was danger. The horned reflection of Lady Morgana.

The area cast under by the glow encompassed the Inquisitor. He still did not move.

"Inquisitor?" Gloria took a step forward. She hesitated to approach the glow. Slowly her hand reached out and touched the Inquisitor's arm.

The Inquisitor turned around and Gloria's mouth fell open with dread, the scream caught in her throat. The Inquisitor's face was gone, melted, running down a white skull. The front of his clothes were falling to tatters as well.

Gloria fell back, throwing her body away from the light. She landed hard on her back as shouts and cries came from her Sisters and the Stormtroopers as they saw what the light had done to their leader.

They weren't looking at the Inquisitor as he, or his skeleton, raised its pistol and took aim at the Sister Superior.

All except Rachael. She saw the danger and turned the nozzle of her flamer the fraction it required to fall upon the Inquisitor instead of the throne. Pyromanic colour swallowed the Inquisitor and for a moment drove away the green.

"What the hell are you doing?" shouted the Stormtrooper leader, rushing out from his cover to the Sister.

"What do you think?" Rachael yelled back. "He wasn't one of us anymore!"

The Inquisitor had been reduced to a burning pile of bones and charred flesh on the ground.

"Gloria," Rachael turned to her superior, "What are we going to do?" she asked, clearly wanting to leave.

Gloria stood herself up. The glow had retreated a little, aware of the fire, but had deepened in intensity. Something was going to happen, soon and Gloria knew she wasn't capable of stopping it, not as she was. The decision was above her rank but with the Inquisitor dead, she was senior officer and now in command of the Inquisitor's task force. She held rank over even the best of the Imperial Guard soldiers.

"We leave, now!" Urgency was in her voice.

Relief washed over the faces of her Sisters and the Stormtroopers.

Without order the score of Imperial warriors fled the chamber and its mean glow. As soon as they had left the room the dread feeling lessened in their hearts. The runes around the doorway glowed as well in a rainbow multitude of colours.

They rushed along the corridor. Gloria held the rear along with Rachael; the latter recognising that her flamer could do something against the glow. It expanded until it took up the room but came no further out. Then the glow disappeared as they exited the corridor and turned a corner.

At the front of the disorganised group were a Stormtrooper and Sister Nicole. They sped around the corner and came to a shuddering halt. In front of them was one of Lady Morgana's maids, Sister Nicole recognised, with her head slightly bowed; her eyes could not be seen.

"What are you doing here?" the Stormtrooper asked roughly, stepping forward to push her out of the way.

Without looking up the maid backhanded the Stormtrooper snapping his neck loudly and sending the body spinning into the wall.

"What the?" Sister Nicole gasped.

The maid started to lift her face…

Before half of it was blasted away by a hellgun beam. The maid staggered but did not fall down. The group, bunched up at the corner, murmured in surprise. The maid stood upright. Foot long nails stretched out from her hand and a chilling smirk appeared on her lip, fire blackened skin around it. In the hole in her head blue and pink worms flipped and flopped about. She opened her mouth, wider and wider revealing rows of shark pointed teeth.

"Kill it!"

Hellguns and bolter explosions jerked the maid's body, a doll in the hands of an angry child. Blood did not issue from the dozens of wounds, more pink and blue globs that fell on the floor and splattered the walls and ceiling.

Then the maid exploded.

Everyone stood up after the chunks had settled. Except for Sister Nicole. A thin line of blood ran out of her lip and down the side of her cheek. A sharp piece of ribcage was impaled in her chest.

Rachael and Sister Emily fell on their knees beside her.

"Nicole, Nicole!" Sister Emily shook the body of her friend trying to rouse her. She wasn't dead… "No!"

Rachael closed her eyes feeling the sting at the corner of her eyes. Putting one hand on Sister Emily's shoulder she whispered into her ear: "She's gone, Em. And we have to go too."

"I won't," Sister Emily said. "I won't leave her here."

"We don't have any choice," the Stormtrooper commander said. "We have to get out of here."

"That was the blind maid; the closest to Lady Morgana," Gloria said.

"Then she's responsible and I'll kill her!" Sister Emily's voice was full of hate. She stood up quickly and ran down the corridor by herself.

"Em!" Rachael called out after her and looked at Gloria.

"At least she's going the right way," the Stormtrooper said and followed, his men behind.

"This can't continue like this or we'll all get killed." Gloria pounded her fist against the wall.

"We better leave too and get to our power armour," Sister Verona urged. She wouldn't feel comfortable, or safe, until her body was enclosed in the red shield.

They left the two casualties of war behind with regret. They would come back and recover them later, they all told themselves. First they had to survive the sudden nightmare. The genestealers and mutants had been one thing, alien, monsters, but killable easily enough. What was happening now was utterly different. Murderous light, maids turning to horrors. Walking corpses. What would be waiting for them above?

That was what they didn't want to think about. Had the rest of the maids changed the same? Was there green glow there? Had anything happened to their comrades in arms, were they coming down to rescue them?

"Sister Marie, Sister Marie?" Gloria tried to raise the Sister she had left upstairs. There was no reply. The Sister Superior's heart sank and she feared for the worst. Sister Helen she had left to guard over Lady Morgana as well. She tried to remember how many maids the Lady had in her service. But there could have been more, ones she hadn't seen.

What was going on? The Governor in league with aliens, his wife with something far more macabre. Had each known of the other or not? How long had each been in the hands of the enemy of Mankind?

Firing up ahead.

Sister Emily.

Their pace increased.

Flaming barrels joined Sister Emily; she was kneeling at the base of the stairwell that lead back up to the Residence. Coming down the stairs were Lady Morgana's maids. Each had a manic grin on her face and held an odd assortment of hand weapons such as swords, a cleaver, saucepan and a duster. Multicoloured pus oozed from the holes Sister Emily's bolter had already opened. None had fallen.

Red laser fire added to her weapon and the barrage rocked the front rank of maids. One fell and rolled down the stairs, her body seeming to come apart with each bumping rotation. Her severed head reached the line of Imperial warriors first, blue and pink seeping out.

The heavier weight of fire had an affect. The maids' bodies rocked and jerked. Everone remembered that they exploded and inched back, pressed into the wall, as the maids inexorably came further down the staircase.

Rachael joined the firing line, hellguns and bolters, and added her own purifying flames scouring the stairs.

When she stopped the maids were gone.

Instead were liquid masses of horrific appearance, having huge razor sharp teeth maws, twisted-arm claws and worse. One raised an appendage, open mouthed and from it in pyrotechnicolour imitation of Rachael's flames came a swirling blast.

The horror's licking flames melted away the right side of a Stormtrooper who caught most of the blast. The others could see inside his body, the failing organs and bones. Just like the Inquisitor. The Sister's were somehow were unscathed.

Gloria leapt through them all, powersword singing in her arms, and landed in front of the horrors, the skirt of her habit flying around her knees, Ikon' skull facing the foe with determination. She sliced the blue-coated sword horizontally from right to left and cleaved it through two horrors. Their bodies vanished in a shower of pink and blue sparks raining down on the Sister Superior, harmlessly.

Howling two more taloned horrors lashed out at Gloria and their sharp claws tore through her habit and bit into her flesh. Gloria grit her teeth together and hacked the arm off one from the body and slammed the sword's pommel between the eyes of the second staggering it. The one-armed spectre tried to sink its teeth into her but the righteous Sister moved too quickly and it too exploded in sparks.

There were more however, three more to fight and Gloria took them on alone, destroying each one in turn with her sword. Blood seeped from the cut in her arm and a slash across her cheek.

"Gloria, are you mad?" Verona said rushing up to her, forgetting rank. Rachael was a moment behind, slowed by the bulk of her heavy flamer.

"It was the only way. Our guns would have done nothing and we would have all been killed," was Gloria's response. She felt it to be true. "There will be more upstairs."

"Then what are we going to do? You can't kill them all by yourself." It was the Stormtrooper. His face was especially grim.

"While I still draw breath I can kill." Gloria answered.

"But what about the rest of us?"

Gloria had no answer.

"We'll do our duty to the Emperor," Rachael said for her. "And find a way to fight them."

"We should have taken the Inquisitor's weapons," said a Stormtrooper. "He would have had some good gear that would kill these things."

"And are you going to go back and get them?" his commander responded.

"Enough," Gloria ordered. "The maids were waiting for us. More maybe, but Lady Morgana – or whatever she really is – might have thought that enough and there will be no other ambush or trap."

"This is just like the Eye of Terror campaign, before I joined you guys," said another Stormtrooper. "Man, I wish the Marines were here."

Gloria led, sword in both hands. They met no resistance at the top of the stairs and the corridor was empty as well. Still, they advanced slowly and quietly to the entrance of the secret corridor which lay fully open. Gloria peered out, the door behind her head, and saw nothing. She stepped through and checked the other direction. It was empty too and the men and women filed out. The Stormtrooper commander stood next to Gloria.

"What now?" he whispered.

"We have to get our armour." Gloria didn't know where they were. The others did. "How far?" she asked Verona.

"In a waiting room on the other side of the main entrance. If we run a minute or two; a cautious approach, it could take half an hour," was Verona's answer.

"Half an hour?" the commander breathed. That would be an eternity.

"I doubt we have that much time." Gloria said. An uneasy sensation had settled down on her again. That all the fighting so far had just been a small prelude to what was really going to happen. "Your men are going to have to hold off any attack while we activate our power armour." When we get there, if.

"We'll do our best, Sister," the commander said. That was all he could promise in this time of fear.

They got moving again, avoiding the larger halls and rooms where the chance of sentries would be higher. The roundabout way brought them to the kitchen. Inside was what none of them wanted to see, or remember later.

Blood was everywhere. Pools on the floor, on benches, on the wall. Dripping from the ceiling. Lit gas flames boiled pans and bubbling the red source of life boiled over the side, steaming as it touched the unnatural flame. More than one Stormtrooper and Sister vomited. Gloria covered her mouth. Rachael grimaced and walked to one of the pans.

"Careful."

Rachael didn't need to be told. She peered over the lip of a large pan and stepped back suddenly causing the others to raise their weapons. She had seen the dismembered body of a human, she couldn't tell if man or woman because the skin had been boiled off, globs of fat simmering.

"Don't look in anything," she warned them.

The continued slowly through the macabre room and could not help but see the gnawed bones, and pieces of what had to be comrades hanging from racks and on trays. A large oven cooked a pile of bodies. A pile of heads circled around and around, eyes popped by microwaves. Their bloated tongues oozed out of open screaming mouths.

"How could this have happened so fast? We have not been gone for long."

No one could answer. They were all thinking if they would be added to the pantry.

Luck held for them and they continued to have safe progress through the Residence. It was quiet, deathly so. That they were the only ones alive not just in the building but on he planet.

Could the horrors have slaughtered the entire population of the world?

Then there was just one last corridor to cross and door to open. On the other side waited a chance of survival. None thought that the power armour had been moved. They didn't want to think that, it would lead to despair. They had to hope.

"How are we going to do this?" the commander asked Gloria.

"Quickly this time. I will go first again, then half your squad followed by my Sisters then the rest of your squad. It is your squad's responsibility to eliminate resistance and give my Sisters time to don their armour."

"How long will that take? I don't like having to be the fall – our weapons didn't do anything to those things."

"I know," Gloria sighed. She looked at the anxiously waiting faces of the men and women, their lives now firmly in her hands and she felt, strongly, that she would not see them again in this life. Her heart weighed heavily. "But those are my orders. It takes a few minutes for a Sister to don her armour and activate it. You must give us that much time otherwise we will fail."

"Minutes?" the commander said unhappily.

"Yes. A Sister must activate the suit with a set of commandments. Only when the litanies are complete and correct will the armour enclose about her and become fully operational. Otherwise any woman could use it and that would be disastrous. It is even more stringent for the Marines; each suit is genetically tied to its wearer."

"Thanks for the long explanation."

The instructions were relayed. As a reassuring measure the Sisters swapped their bolters with the Stormtroopers hellguns. While the Sister's were prepping their armour they would not be able to use weapons at all. Rachael handed over her heavy flamer reluctantly. "Use it well," she told the Stormtooper who nodded. The gambit was risky and all pressed their lips firmly together.

"Go!"

Gloria ran out first, bare feet making no noise on the carpet. She held the sword one handed, the other reaching for the handle of the door. Behind her came the Stormtroopers, four of them, clutching their exchanged bolters tightly. She reached the door and pausing for only a moment to recite the Emperor's Grace, she closed her fingers around the door's knob, turned it, and thrust the door inward.

"My dear." Lady Morgana said, smiling at her serenely. "You didn't think I would forget about you, did I?" Her smile vanished, replaced with a look of hate and she thrust the knife she held in both hands into Gloria's stomach.


	8. Litany VIII

LITANY VIII

The knife sunk deep into Gloria's abdomen.

She gasped softly and looked down from Lady Morgana's twisted face to where the Lady's hands were beginning to be covered with red. Her blood. Her life force escaping. Her eyes started to close…

"Holy..!" Stormtroopers were right behind Gloria and they crashed into her from behind, inadvertently driving the knife further into the Sister's expiring body.

"It's the Witch, get her!"

Gloria was falling, feeling nothing.

Bolters opened up on Lady Morgana at close range, furious bolts impacting over her body, doing nothing. The Lady laughed at them, a ringing, pitiless laugh and she stepped back into the room between a pair of standing power armour suits. The firing stopped.

"Want these?" she said teasingly.

"Oh, no! Gloria, Gloria!"

"Sister Superior!"

Seven Sisters crowded around their leader, lying on the ground. Rachael shoved her way through to be by her side and lifted her friend's body in her arms. Gloria's eyes were closed as if she were serenely asleep. The knife was still in her stomach and Rachael pulled it free. Blood, for the first time no hers, fell on her face like tears. She looked up at Lady Morgana, an arm draped over a power suit, smiling victoriously.

"Bitch!" Rachael screamed and rushed at the Lady. Then she was flying through the air, face struck numb, and crashed into a wall and slid down unconscious.

"Impotent fools," Lady Morgana chided. "You cannot harm me, none of you. I am not like my husband, a tool to an alien mind. I have full control, choice, to accept the Powers of Chaos into this failing world. The Emperor is dead Sisters, a husk rotted away on Earth who does not care for any of you. Who does not reward. My Masters reward, giving me gifts and power. They are the future and they will rule over mankind. I will be there with them, leading."

The Lady laughed again, tossing her head back.

And that gave Stormtrooper Jenkins his chance. He had been involved in the Eye of Terror campaign assigned to a special Marine contingent. He had seen Chaos Cultists before, and demons. He had seen them kill and he had seen them been killed by the Marines. He had bee next to one Marine in the process of dismembering a man-sized demon with an ornate halberd. He had heard the Marine repeat a Cant over and over again until the demon was destroyed. Jenkins remembered the words of the Cant. The Sister's power sword was on the ground in front of him. The Cultist was distracted by her own arrogance. He leapt to the sword and picked it up and ran at the Lady and with all his strength, the Cant leaping from his mouth, struck down with the power sword as the Lady just reacted.

The sword cleaved halfway down Lady Morgana's head before it was stopped by her hand gripping around the sharp glowing blade. No blood flowed out from the destructive wound. The separated eyes of the Lady burned with malevolence at the brave Stormtrooper.

"Aspiring Knight?" said she.

Jenkins continued to recite the Cant as had the Marine. And press down as hard as he could on her head.

"I will not…" the Witches voice was beginning to fade, weakened by the Stormtrooper's Will and the power of the Cant.

"Keep it up, Jenkins!" the Stormtrooper's comrades shouted. "Kill the Witch!"

Jenkins had no intention of stopping. The Emperor was with him!

So he thought. Lady Morgana had other intentions. Now was not her time to do. With her free hand she grabbed the top of the troublesome soldier's helmet and gripping it, fingers cracking the ballistic material, she tore off his head.

The body collapsed in a head. Lady Morgana tossed the head aside as if it were nothing. Not anymore. She pulled the power sword out from her head and snapped it in two. Her head remained split and she was unsteady on her feet, which the others noticed.

"Fire!"

Hellguns erupted again all aiming at the head. Bolters chattered noisily as well exploding violently all over the Lady's jerking frame. The Sisters recited one of their own Litanies as the fired, praying for their aim to be true and the potency of their weapons increased to strike down the heretic.

The fire had effect. The Lady's body started to disintegrate, blown apart by the withering gale. Blue and pink flame poured out from the wounds until there was more unnatural fire than Lady left.

"She's going to blow."

The Sisters and Stormtroopers dived for cover behind chairs or couches and furniture. The explosion rocked the room, the building, shattering all the glass and vases. A smouldering hole was all that was left of Lady Morgana.

A Stormtrooper stuck his head over the hole. "It goes all the way down," he said. He didn't notice that his face was covered in the same kind of green light that had killed Inquisitor Feordervich.

"Get back!"

But it was too late for the Stormtrooper. A whirling scream of green light solidified rushed up the hole and vapourised the upper half of his body. The legs, neatly severed, remained by the hole undisturbed.

"Suit up!" Sister Verona shouted over the screaming noise. The Sisters ran to their suits. Verona remained with Gloria but her experienced eye saw that there was nothing she could do for Gloria. Tearing away the cloth revealed that the wound was infected already. Nor did Gloria breath. Reluctantly she had to leave her and went to Rachael. She was alive but unconscious. Verona slung her over her shoulder and carried her back to where her suit lay.

The remaining Stormtroopers covered the doorway and windows, taking whatever cover they could. The commander collected hand grenades and putting them in a bag, threw it down the hole. He didn't think it would do any good. The explosion was stifled by the distance and light. The wind had stopped.

The Sisters went through their activation sequences faster than any training drill. The suits enclosed about them, closing airtight. Verona was the last to don her power armour, standing over Rachael.

"Time to get out of here," Verona said, assuming command of the small force. No one disagreed with her and the Stormtrooper commander was more than happy not to have to take responsibility. The Sister picked up Rachael. "Someone get Sister Superior Gloria too."

A step was taken and then the building was shaking again and the howling green light threw up and shattered the ceiling. Debris rained down and they all scattered for cover. Cracks tore the floor open. One Sister and a Stormtrooper slid down in the yawning abyss, screaming as the green light came over them, melting away their flesh.

Everyone else ran or leapt through the windows. Holding onto Rachael tightly Verona kicked a hole through the crumbling wall and shoved herself through. Others followed behind with haste and the room was left empty.

Until through the widened cavern a feathered winged beast rose. Its two bony arms ended with large clawed hands and its head was long and carrion, a bleached beak croaking mocking laughter.

"I shall eat you first, Sister Gloria," the Daemon said in human mimicry. Nails as long as a man's arm flipped over furniture in search of the Sister's body. It was not found. "Where are you? You can't have crawled away. You were dead." The mocking tone was gone. "You didn't fall, I would have gobbled you up if you did. I'll find the one that has taken you."

The blood Gloria had shed lay outside the collapsed floor. No Sister or Stormtrooper had escaped the room by the door.

The Daemon sniffed the air and croaked. It's long head looked at the hole in a wall and what passed as a smile crossed over it. The beady eyes, black, narrowed. The morsels that had gone through the windows would be hunted down and flayed by the horrors that roamed the grounds outside.

"Emperor's Mercy, who could do such a thing?" Sister Emily cried.

Hanging from the ceiling by their tendons and bowels were the stripped bodies of Sister Marie and Helen. An eight-pointed star had been sliced into their foreheads. Between the two hung the Inquisitor's Psyker. He was still alive, barely. A platoon of Stormtrooper heads outlined a pentagram joined by arm and shinbones.

In the middle of the pentagram, covered red by dripping blood, was the Comte. He was naked. His open-chest cadaver held no organs.

"Join me in unending service, Soldiers," the Comte, or rather what he had been turned into by the corrupt forces of Chaos, said.

The Stormtrooper commander stepped out of the small band of survivors that included three Sisters and another trooper. "In the name of the Emperor of Mankind, Supreme Justice above All Else, I judge you and find you guilty of Heresy. The sentence is Death."

The commander raised a bolter and fired a dozen of the high-explosive rounds into his former commander. The cadaver exploded apart leaving just piles of mess in the midst of the greater mess.

"I hope you find some peace in that Hell," the commander said quietly for the soul of the Comte.

"This world needs to be incinerated. That's the only way it can be purified," Sister Verona said.

"And how are we going to do that?" the commander asked.

"The ship, they can bombard us."

No one liked the way she had said 'us', confirming that they had all come to realise: that there was going to be no survival.

"The Inquisitor is the only one who could have ordered Exterminatus, and he is dead. They won't believe us."

"If the see daemons they will."

And at that moment the wall behind them crashed down and through it came the carrion Daemon. It croaked at them and flexed its powerful deadly claws.

"More to add to my collection," it said. "I enjoy carving up the 'faithful'."

The survivors ran. With great strides the Daemon was in the middle and swatted a Sister into the wall. Its other hand picked up a Stormtrooper and the soldier valiantly fired into the Daemon before his head was torn off in the beast's maw and spat back to know Verona down, dropping Rachael who rolled to the taloned feet of the Daemon.

"I will eat her whole and savour the soul for aeons."

"I shall not let you," rang a clear, pure voice from behind the Daemon.

The Daemon turned, as did Verona and the others and there, to their amazement stood Gloria completely unharmed. Her eyes shone.

"Then I will eat you first!" the Daemon growled and drawing in a great breath, expelled it out as sulphurous blue fire.

Gloria did not move. The fire consumed her and from the sight of others she vanished in the shaking flames and they felt dismayed. The Daemon laughed and tossed its head and began to turn back to its waiting meal as the flames died.

But Behold! Gloria stood their still, hair that had once been white now gold and long flowing about a peaceful but firm face, marked with a red fleur-de-lis on one cheek, and in armour as silver as her soul was she clad, rimmed with the finest gold, all except for her corset which was of the brightest scarlet, the same colour of her beauteous mouth. In her hand she held a sword.

"Sacred Martyr!" Sister Verona breathed in awe.

"Faith, Sister," no longer Sister Superior Gloria said. Now she was something more, purer, sanctified. Chosen. As the deathly grip of Chaos had bit into her and the light was fading from her eyes, Gloria's thoughts had only been on her friends and that they might survive. She felt herself giving away, letting go of life as the blood ran from her. Her light and faith was a distant point, shrinking.

'Will you forsake me?' a voice echoing across light years said in her mind. 'Will you forsake your companions and let them fall into darkness?'

'I am dying' she said, 'I cannot do more for them.'

'Then you have sealed their fate and millions more will die because of it.' Gloria was told coldly.

'What can I do to help them? I feel cold and cannot see…'

'Get up.'

"I can't.'

"Remember your Faith, Sister.'

'Mine is broken.'

'That of your friends! That of your Emperor!'

'He will persevere without me.'

'That is the voice of Heresy. Are you not tasked with ridding the Imperium of Heresy?'

'I am dying, I can do no more. I wish I could, but I can't.'

'You can, get up!'

'How? My body is dead.'

'Get up! Rise!'

'Why is the light so strong?'

'Rise, Sister, or be eternally damned!'

'So bright, is this paradise?'

'Rise Martyr! Rise for your Emperor. Rise for me!'

And her eyes opened and she was no longer where she had been. And she felt whole and vigorous. The Emperor's Will burned within her hotter than any fire of man or hell.

The Daemon's flames did not consume her. Her habit was burnt away revealing the shining armour beneath, a radiance matched in her eyes. She pointed her sword at the Daemon that stood thrice her height.

The Daemon swiped its claws at her, catching only air as the Martyr soared into the air, a pair of angelic wings folding out from her back. Velvet scrolls unwound down her bare feet; her skirt rippled. Clarions called forth from the Heavens.

A golden halo burst into existence behind her head.

The last Sisters fell to their knees in reverence.

Flames burst along the length of the blade she held.

Gloria pointed the tip at the Daemon. "Burn in the flames of righteous purity, foul carrion." And the flames raced down the blade and through the air and struck the Daemon.

The Daemon recoiled back, shielding its face with a mighty claw. As the flames poured around it, it began to laugh and withdrew its hand, only slightly singed. "No mortal light can harm me," it said.

"No mortal am I. Have at thee!"

Born on her wings Gloria flew at the Daemon and sliced it with her sword, rose petals drifting in her wake. The Daemon tried to grab the sword but the Holy blade cut through the spawn's hand, severing three talons. The Daemon screeched and retreated and Gloria pursued harrying the tainted monster. It snapped its jaws at her, lashed with the other claw. Gloria deftly avoided the assault and cut the Daemon's stomach. It groaned and drew back on itself and Gloria readied herself for the final stroke that would send the daemon back into the tormented void.

At that moment the coiled Daemon sprang and its strong beak clamped down on Gloria's shoulder and sword arm. Armour dented and buckled under the strain and the Martyr's face twinged with agony. The Daemon's eye, not far from her own burned with laughter and hate.

That eye Gloria plucked out with her other hand and the Daemon screamed terribly, letting go of her. The black orb Gloria crushed, rancid liquid squirting out of the ruptured sight. The Daemon howled and croaked in rage and pain.

"Enemy of Mankind, begone!" Gloria shouted, her voice ringing like a death knell in the Daemon's small ears. The shining woman raised the sword high above her head and with both delicate hands wrapt around the silk corded hilt, she smote down on top the Daemon's skull and split it wide open. Flames leapt from the blade and incinerated the mockery of intelligence.

Wailing its last the Daemon cried for succour from its masters but none came. There was no forgiving Master to save it. The Daemon's own fire consumed it leaving not even ash.

Lightly Gloria landed and the wings folded around her. She knelt down by Rachael's side and lifted the Sister in her kind arms. Rachael's eyes fluttered open. "Are you an angel?" she said, before they closed again.

Gloria cradled Rachael's sleeping body, a tear falling for each Sister that had been lost. Outside the stalking horrors vanished back to Chaos with the destruction of their Lord. Verona and Emily, the only surviving Sisters, fell to their knees before the Living Martyr and clasped their hands in prayer. The Stormtrooper captain barely comprehending what had just happened found a chair to sit in, and against his Doctor's orders, lit up a cigarette.

Marines in silver power armour swept through the Residence like barely remembered dreams.

Rachael woke to overhead lights passing her one after the other. Looking down at her, glowing, was Gloria. She was smiling at her and saying something she could not hear. And there was a Marine with a very thick neck.

Black armoured Stormtoopers with silver eagles circled around the seated commander. "Want a smoke?" he asked them before passing out. They carried him away like a fallen hero.

An elegantly dressed woman with long strawberry gold tresses presented herself to Verona and Emily with a soft cough. A fleur-de-lis was on her cheek. She held an Ikon of the Inquisition. "May I have a word?" she said.

An ordinary looking Gloria sat in a dark office. The only light was a small desk lamp between her and the rather large Grey Knight Chaplain who was seated on the other side of the desk.

The Chaplain smiled at her, which Gloria did not think Marines of any Chapter could do. It was a kind, grandfatherly smile. Studs in the Marine's forehead gave her clue as to his age, more than enough to be her grandfather.

"The tests returned no trace of Chaos taint to you or any of your comrades. You are no longer under quarantine and can travel about the Hammer of Ego," the Grey Knights warship "as you please, according to your security clearance. Of course the Chapel is available for use."

"That is good news, Chaplain."

"Yes something seems to be troubling you?" the Chaplain said, folding his hands.

"Yes. I have dreams."

"Go on,"

"It is the Daemon that I banished, and Lady Morgana's face…"

"She was possessed by the Daemon."

"They call my name and say that they are going to kill me."

The Chaplain laughed, a deep laughter that made Gloria frown. "Do not worry too much, Sister Gloria. Daemons are not permanently destroyed, not as long as there are fools who accept their false lures of power. This Daemon can invade your dreams, we will teach you how to block them or turn them to your advantage. And it is only one."

"One?"

"I have three," the Chaplain said, holding up three meaty fingers.

fin

A/N: A Litany a night to finish GLORIA. Having picked up the GK codex I would like to add a squad of these guys to my Witch Hunters force. I hope you like the story and it's ending. Before anyone goes nuts, Gloria hasn't joined the Grey Knights (was some other story with a femme becoming a Marine), they're all part of another Inquisitor's retinue now. I forgot to write how Rasputin died, he did though, surrounded by horrors while he was gardening.

**/\/\ss/\/\**


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